As a chill begins to set on the Abbotsford-Mission area – and B.C. overall – Environment Canada statistics show the freeze, while abnormal, is not unprecedented.
The forecast low in this upcoming freeze, previously forecast at -8 C Monday night, is now -6 C both Monday and Tuesday nights, according to the Environment Canada weather service.
But even at -8 C, the chill wouldn’t have touched records set for this time of year in Abbotsford.
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| Click the image for a link to the Environment Canada forecast for Abbotsford. Environment Canada |
Certainly, the 0 C highs early next week are well below the 7 C records for those days, and even at -6 C, the lows are dropping a solid six degrees below normal.
But -6 C on Monday is also a fair distance from the -11 C local record for Feb. 4 set in 1985 and even further from the Feb. 5 record of -12.8 C, set in 1949.
As well, any flurries we can expect to see tomorrow, we’re unlikely to set any records. On Feb. 3, 1949, Abbotsford-Mission gained about 21 centimetres and on Feb. 3, 1969 a record of 30 centimetres of snow was on the ground.
However, yesterday’s rain nearly set a Feb. 1 record. With 33.9 mm of precipitation yesterday, we were just 2.4 mm shy of the 36.3-mm record set on Feb. 1, 1947.