Will rain record be all wet?

Photo: Darren Handschuh

Will the summer of 2017 be the driest on record?

We will know in a few hours.

If no measurable rainfall lands on any of the several weather stations in the Valley by midnight, 2017 will have gone 45 days without measurable rainfall.

The record of 44 days was tied as of midnight Saturday and if the clock strikes 12 tonight without any rain, a new record will officially enter the books.

Environment Canada meteorologist Lisa West said the previous record was set in 2003.

West said rain and thunder cells are popping up in Southern B.C., but “it's all about whether those cells pass over one of our weather stations in the area. There has to be .2 mm of measurable rain at our weather stations.”

Earlier this week, the weather prognosticators were calling for a 60 per cent chance of rain Saturday with showers Sunday, but West said there is now only a 30 per cent chance of rain Saturday afternoon with the risk of a thunderstorm.

“There's a lot of potential (rain) streaming up from the south, it just a matter of whether or not some of that stuff stays together by the time it reaches Kelowna,” said West.

West said there is a good chance of rain overnight as there is a “frontal system moving into the Interior overnight and we have some rain coming to the Okanagan.”

That rain is expected to continue through the night with a 60 per cent chance of continued precipitation Sunday.