The sun has been shining for weeks in many parts of British Columbia, including Nanaimo's Hammond Bay area. (Ian Holmes/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By NanaimoNewsNOW Staff

summer in October

Forecaster predicts prolonged stretch of sun and warm temperatures to continue

Oct 3, 2022 | 3:37 PM

NANAIMO — September was the fourth warmest and 15th driest on record for mid-Vancouver Island.

Environment Canada meteorologist Alyssa Charbonneau said last month continued an extended run of drier and warmer than average conditions following a chilly and wet spring.

“It feels like the whole season has been shifted and certainly it has felt like we are seeing those warm summer days with temperature records being broken, even this past weekend.”

A new daily temperature record was established on Monday, Oct. 3 when 25.1 degrees was set at Nanaimo Airport, beating the old mark of 24.6 degrees in 1993.

A temperature of 25.9 on Sunday, Oct 2 also set a new daily temperature record, edging out the old mark of 25.6 in 1952.

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Charbonneau said the short-term expectation is a lot more sun and daytime temperatures consistently above the 20-degree mark through at least this weekend.

She said an extended ridge of high pressure is keeping warm air settled in the region and many other parts of the province.

“We just haven’t seen that pattern change much at all and even looking here now into the near future we don’t really see that changing anytime soon.”

A sun-filled September followed the sixth warmest June, July and August in Nanaimo, according to Charbonneau.

Summer was late to arrive following a much colder and wetter spring than usual, which included numerous storms and even a round of snowfall in April on the mid-Island.

It has been more than a year of extreme weather patterns regionally and abroad with last summer’s heat dome, followed by heavy cycles of heavy rain in the fall and a record-setting stretch of cold temperatures late last year and early this year when several feet of snow fell.

“We will continue to see extreme weather events in the future, just how much and when they will hit that is the question and unfortunately beyond my ability to predict,” Charbonneau told NanaimoNewsNOW.

Environment Canada’s weather records date back to 1892.

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