Drought at 48 days – All Island at Drought Level 4
The drought continues. Our last measurable rainfall at Alberniweather was June 15, 48 days ago.
All of Vancouver Island and much of southern BC is at Drought Level 4.
No rain before Friday – Minor showers Friday morning
The forecast has toyed with the idea of showers or rain a few times in the past week but it keeps drying up. There was also some thunderstorm activity on Saturday but mostly dry. At this point the heat is expected to continue until Wednesday at least. Friday morning shows possible showers moving down the Island.
The showers don’t amount to a lot. Just 0.5-2mm focused mostly on the west coast. After Friday we return to dry weather though the heat abates.
Port Alberni water restrictions at Stage 2
The City of Port Alberni and those areas using CPA water move to Stage 2 water restrictions this week. I like this page (PDF) that shows the differences between all the restrictions. I sense we might get to Stage 3 before the end of this month.
Let’s hope the forecast gets a little wetter for the weekend. Until then, stay hydrated out there and do what you can to conserve water. We have started using our laundry gray water for some watering of flowers and trees.
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3 responses to “August begins like July – Heatwave and Drought continues – more Water Restrictions in Port Alberni”
Chris – I just sent EC a question through their contact page. The Daily Data chart for July shows precipitation nearly every day, and a total of 10mm for the month. Every other local site agrees with yours, 48 days zero rain. Any idea what could cause these daily measurements?
I noticed that as well. I can only speculate that there is faulty hardware at play. Most days have not even featured enough moisture from fog to generate measureable precipitation. They need only look to Tofino airport which has not recorded any precipitation since July 18. And they have a person doing actual reports. It’s definitely something EC needs to rectify.
Here’s the answer from EC:
Hello Mr. Brown,
Thank you for sending your message to Environment and Climate Change Canada. The Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC) is mandated to supply meteorological information to all Canadians, and is continuously monitoring and maintaining its observation networks to ensure they have access to reliable weather and climate data at all time. The weather data for Port Alberni is taken by an Automatic Weather station 365 days a year. This station was serviced on June 25 and was back in operation the same day. Shortly thereafter, the precipitation sensor was shown to be defective (reporting false precipitation) and was reported as unreliable. We do have an open ticket so that the BC meteorological inspection office can visit the site in order to effect the necessary repairs. The precipitation data for Port Alberni has been suppressed since then and will be shown as missing on the weather pages until it is repaired. The precipitation data will likely be archived as missing or erroneous for the month of July and possibly the beginning of August. We apologize for the inconvenience.