Tell your hottest friends—Haida Gwaii may be one of the only places in Canada to experience near-normal temperatures this summer.
Jennifer Smith, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), said during a June 11 presentation of ECCC’s summer season forecast that while most of Canada can expect above-average temperatures, coastal B.C. can expect temperatures to be near or even slightly cooler than normal.
“It doesn’t mean that those parts of Canada won’t experience warm spells,” Smith said. “But when evaluating the season as a whole, the net temperature might not be above what is climatologically normal.”
While the summer outlook for precipitation is less clear, there may be slightly more rain than normal this June to August over Haida Gwaii, Vancouver Island, and other parts of coastal B.C.
ECCC also warned that summer wildfires, even if they are thousands of kilometres away, may impact local air quality. The agency recently revised its 1 to 10 air-quality index to better account for wildfire smoke and created a new alert for days when high levels of wildfire smoke drive the index to 10 or higher.
