It snowed in Canada, and it wasn’t in the Arctic

Thanks to a strangely fall-like system spinning over the northern Prairies, winter was capable of sneaking back into northern British Columbia this weekend, turning grassy surfaces white in just a matter of hours.

There are a plenty of time-lapse videos flooding over the internet that give you an idea about the unexpected variation of seasons recorded between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning near Steamboat Hill, around eighty kilometers from Fort Nelson along the Alaska Highway, at an elevation of roughly 1030 meters.

There are cameras in northeastern British Columbia that spotted snow early Sunday, including near Fort Nelson itself, less than 400 meters. Snowfall warnings were still in effect early Monday, with up to thirty centimeter of snow anticipated for a few by the time the system wraps up through the day.

Environment Canada even warned, “Travel is not recommended. Visibility may possibly be all of a sudden decreased at time in heavy snow.” Environment Canada even warned of accumulation of heavy snow probably resulting in tree branches to break.

Despite the fact that this is a very early season snowfall, it is not totally unheard of for the region. Fort Nelson averages 0.6 cm of snow in August; the record snowfall for the day is 5 cm. It is certainly not the norm, however, with an average August daily high approximately 15^OC.

Wet weather keeps on all the way through Wednesday

As the mountain snow reduces across the far north through Monday, a warm front associated with the Pacific system will arrive at the northern coast of British Columbia, by the afternoon hours. Rain showers will build up for regions just south of the warm front with heavy rain keeping it up along the northern coast through Wednesday.

The heaviest rain is likely Monday evening and into the pre-dawn hours of Tuesday, with the threat of embedded thunderstorms as well. Rain showers will arrive at South Coast and Lower Mainland on Wednesday, even though with considerably less totals estimated.

We are not reasonably done with the snow risk either.!

More summer now?

According to Weather Network meteorologist Jaclyn Whittal, “Initially confined to the higher terrain, more snow will expand along stretches of the Alaska Highway, and possibly even at valley locations such as Fort Nelson and Dease Lake.”

Circumstances will be much drier late week, even though with near, to somewhat lower, seasonal temperatures projected behind the system. Weather Network meteorologist even said, “We will see observe the potential for warmer weather for the final week of August.”