February weather across the Thompson-Okanagan was both warmer and wetter than normal, with some extremes taking place at the start and the end of the month.
According to Environment Canada, Penticton saw 195% of their normal precipitation for February, while Kelowna hit 130%, Vernon hit 123% and Kamloops with 155%.
Environment Canada meteorologist Alyssa Charbonneau noted that a significant amount of that precipitation came in the form of snow.
"Definitely a lot of snow into the mountains and highway passes, but also into the communities."
The wet weather is good news for a region struggling with the risk of drought this summer as snowpacks last month were below normal. New snowpack data will be published by the province March 8.
Charbonneau tells Castanet the extreme warm-cold weather pattern from January continued into February.
“We started off the month quite warm with temperatures that were well above normal, sort of settled down to near normal with a dip below, and then of course once again towards the end of the month of February we saw some very warm temperatures with some high maximum temperatures records and high minimum temperature records that were set in many places like Penticton, Kelowna and Vernon.”
Kamloops, for example, had an overnight high minimum temperature record set on Feb. 1. More warm weather records were broken near the end of the month around Feb. 23 to 25.
"Vernon set a high maximum temperature record on the Feb. 23 of 12.9 degrees, with the previous record being 11.7 back in 1947. But the one that really stands out to me is on the Feb. 25 we saw Penticton and Vernon set records," said Charbonneau.
Penticton reached 16.3 degrees as their high temperature. And it reached 13.6 degrees that same day in Vernon.
Overall, both Kelowna and Vernon had their 16th warmest Januarys on record. Kelowna was 1.5 C above normal while Vernon was 2.5 C above normal. The rest of the region saw statistically normal temperatures.
Heading through the first week of March, Environment Canada expects weather to return to seasonal, with overnight lows of minus three and daily highs of about six degrees celsius.
Here are some temperature and precipitation stats for February 2024. ????#BCStorm #BCWx pic.twitter.com/qDIsIdUjjJ
— ECCC Weather British Columbia (@ECCCWeatherBC) March 1, 2024