Lillooet, Salmon Arm broke century-old temperature records Wednesday

“That really mild air that comes from the sub tropics hits the coastal mountains and wrings out all of the moisture, so when that air comes down the other side of the coast mountains into the interior of B.C., it warms and dries out quite a bit,” said Lang.

“This is the time of year when these atmospheric rivers set up, we got away with it in October, there weren’t many atmospheric rivers, if any. It was a dry month, so it came back in November, which is the stormiest and wettest month on the west coast.”

Record temperatures are being set across B.C., Canada and around the globe more frequently as climatologists are sounding the alarms over a potentially historic El Nino this winter.

It also comes after Environment Canada reported a nearly record-breaking dry summer for the Kamloops area, with 21.8 millimetres (mm) of precipitation recorded, well below the average of 90 mm.

Environment Canada reports other areas in the Thompson and Cariboo regions also broke temperature records on Wednesday, including Cache Creek, Clinton, Clearwater and Williams Lake.

Cache Creek’s temperature climbed to 21.5 C, over four degrees higher than the old record of 17 set in 1981.

Clinton’s new record high now sits at 14.7 C, beating the 1981 high of 12.5 C.

In Clearwater, temperatures reached 17.9 C, surpassing the 1981 record of 15 C.

Williams Lake’s old record of 13.2 degrees was also set the same year, with the 2026 temperature reaching 15.5 C.

Lang expects more warm, stormy weather to sweep through the province next weekend with another atmospheric river in the forecast.

“We will probably see some really warm temperatures again on the weekend, whether it’s record-breaking or not remains to be seen,” said Lang.

“With average daytime highs at this time of year around +5 and overnight lows around -2, it’s running way above average.”

by Elora McCormack

Lillooet, Salmon Arm broke century-old temperature records Wednesday

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