Thompson Okanagan coming out of hot, dry month of May

Hot and dry. That's how you can describe May 2023 in the Thompson Okanagan.

According to Environment Canada, a number of weather records were broken last month.

“Most places in the Thompson Okanagan registered temperatures anywhere from about three to four degrees above normal," said Environment Canada meteorologist Matt Loney.

Kelowna, for example, recorded an average temperature of 18 C — a full 4 C above normal.

Environment Canada confirms an early season heatwave played a big role in daily heat records being set across the Thompson Okanagan, and they say the jump is a lot bigger than people think.

“On May 19, Kelowna shattered the previous record of 29.5 degrees eclipsing it by 3.6 degrees, up to 33.1 degrees and the previous record high was back in 1993. The entire period of record goes back to 1899 … Typically we’ll see records broken by a few tenths of a degree, but here the record was broken by over three degrees, so that’s very significant," Loney said

Environment Canada says the Thompson Okanagan was also "relatively dry" last month.

"Much of the Interior, including the Thompson Okanagan, had anywhere from around 20 to 30 millimetres of precipitation. That’s about 50 to 60 per cent of normal, so about half of the precipitation we would normally expect," he added.

"It doesn’t rank in the top 20 for the driest Mays we’ve ever seen, so we’ve definitely seen dryer conditions in the past, but this has been a relatively dry May.”

Temperatures are expected to be high during the first week of June. Environment Canada says people should expect peak temperatures to be in the mid 30s.