As the sun sets on a dry and warm August from Nanaimo's Neck Point, September is shaping up to be average in terms of temperature and precipitation. (Jordan Davidson/NanaimoNewsNow)

By Jordan Davidson

dry end of summer

One of the warmest Augusts in Nanaimo’s history offers little drought relief

Sep 2, 2023 | 8:41 AM

NANAIMO — The trend of hot and dry weather continued in August for eastern Vancouver Island.

While the final figures for the last official month of summer are still being finalized, Environment Canada says it will likely go down as one of the top five warmest Augusts on record in the Harbour City.

Meteorologist Bobby Sekhon says the first 28 days of August were warm and dry province-wide.

“Dryness-wise, not quite ranking in the top five type of thing, but it’s still fairly drier than normal. Normally we see about 28 millimetres of precipitation in the month of August, but this August it’s going to be less than that.”

Nanaimo also set a number of daily maximum temperature records during a particularly warm stretch mid-month, breaking or matching the daily highs three days in a row.

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“On August 13th, we had a new record, well we tied the record of 34.4 (degrees Celcius), and that same record was also in 2002. And then on the 14th, we had a new record of 36.4, previous record was 34.1 from 2010. On the 15th of August, we had another record, 35.7, eclipsing the previous record of 33.1 from 2010.”

Qualicum Beach also tied a daily high temperature near the end of the month, with the mercury reaching 30 degrees on the 27, matching the high from 2017.

Sekhon says despite a few days of rain during the month, the story of long-term drought for Vancouver Island continues.

Looking ahead towards the Labour Day long weekend, that story may change slightly.

“We’re not expecting a lot of precipitation by any means, but there could be some precipitation, especially come Sunday we might see a couple of showers around and then again Monday there’s a possibility, so a couple of days early next week that we might see a few sprinkles but not looking like any heavy amounts by any means.”

Nanaimo’s average daily high temperature for this time of year is around 21 degrees, basically on par with the forecast after the long weekend.

While it’s forecasted to be well above seasonal temperatures for Friday, Sept. 1 and Saturday, Sept. 2, Sekhon says things are expected to shift on Sunday.

“That’s when we’ll see temperatures drop considerably down to the upper teens and we’ll see some chance of precipitation on Sunday… it could be a bit unsettled into the work week as well.”

September 1st is what meteorologists consider the “meteorological fall”, and Sekhon says their weather models predict an average month weather-wise.

“It’s looking like either near normal or above normal temperatures, so certainly not looking at any extended periods of cold weather, but certainly pretty close to normal or slightly above normal is possible for September.”

As of Sept. 1, all of Vancouver Island remains at drought level 5, the highest level on the BC Drought Information Portal.

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