A serene scene from Colliery Dam with overcast skies, a staple of January mid-Island weather. (Ian Holmes/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By Jordan Davidson

weather gone mild

After months of wild weather, January was back to boring West Coast conditions

Feb 8, 2023 | 5:18 AM

NANAIMO — Following a year full of record-setting weather events, the start of 2023 was a bland one in the weather world.

Trevor Smith, Environment Canada meteorologist, said the east side of Vancouver Island saw typical, average conditions.

“In contrast to November and December which were both well-below average for temperatures, we kind of had a more typical West coast, Vancouver Island mild and rainy month.”

The average temperature for the month was 4.4 degree Celsius, with the average being 3.5 degrees.

That makes Jan. 2023 the 23rd warmest for that month on record in Harbour City, a far cry from Jan. 2022 which saw the highest and second-highest daily snowfall records in back-to-back days.

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A blast of arctic air covering much of North America near the end of January lowered the average temperature for Nanaimo.

Other places along the island were a bit warmer.

“Comox had the fifth warmest January on record, and up around Campbell River they were the ninth warmest on record. So it was warmer than average, some places were getting to be one of the warmer ones on record.”

Precipitation-wise, Nanaimo saw 173.8 millimetres of moisture, compared to the average of 187.9 millimetres.

Looking ahead at the rest of February, Smith said while temperatures are expected to be a bit above average this week, it’s expected to cool off next week.

“Starting next week we could see a slight cooling down, not like an Arctic kind of cool but maybe kind of dropping closer to average for this time of year. We’re sort of like in the plus one to plus two range for lows, and highs of plus seven to plus eight, so that would kind of be the average for mid-February.”

Smith said there are no strong signals in either extreme to predict what kind of weather we might expect finishing up winter and heading into spring.

“My best guess is average temperatures and average precipitation amounts, average snowfall amounts. Maybe this year we don’t have that forcing mechanism (La Nina), so that’s probably why we’re kind of not really hedging our bets, either way, this year. Probably just kind of go with a typical kind of late winter and spring for this year.”

And after the sometimes dangerous weather events the mid-Island has seen over the last few years, average weather is a welcome change for many.

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jordan@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @JordanDHeyNow