Heat records fall

Photo: Rob Gibson

Hazy smoke sunset over Okanagan lake

Environment Canada's heat warning remains in effect for the Okanagan as high-temperature records fall.

Meteorologist Doug Lundquist tells Castanet that Friday could see more records fall as we broke records on Thursday, "Kelowna was 37 degrees Celsius, the old record was 36 set back in 1978 and Kelowna records go back to 1899. Vernon tied a record at 35.4 degrees Celsius, the last time it was that hot was back in 2013 and Vernon records go back to the 1900's. "

Penticton likely would have seen new records set but because of the smoke the daytime high was lower and so too was the overnight low.

But it looks like we're in for a pretty major shift in the next 24 hours, "we're going to go to bed in the heat and then boom we're going to wake up and tomorrow will be quite a different picture."

Lundquist also says the models have shifted and we are now looking at the possibility of some heavy showers on Saturday with the potential for thunderstorms, including lightning. "I'm trying to watch right now how much rain we're going to get in these thunderstorms tomorrow, in some locations, it looks actually quite extraordinary, I'm worried about possibly localized flooding in some areas in our region. Culverts can flood when we get heavy thunderstorms, so that's another concern I have for the next couple of days."

Lundquist says the area he's watching is from Kamloops south through the Okanagan and into the Kootenays as well, including Salmon Arm and Revelstoke.

"There is going to be lightning across much of the region but in most of the regions it will come with rain and like I say we're expecting fairly heavy amounts of rainfall."

As for today Lundquist tells Castanet it's going to be another hot day today and we might perhaps touch records today as well and then into the weekend it's going to cool down a lot down to the 23, 24 degree Celsius range before it heats back up again later next week.