Expect today to be the last hot day, possibly of the summer.
Lots going on this morning but one notable thing to start the day is this might be our final clear sunny and hot day of the 2020 summer. Fitting that it has come on the first day back for most kids to school. Once you’re done your orientations today you might want to head out to the lake one last time!
Friday’s temperatures only reach to about 27ºC or 28ºC
By this time next week, morning temperatures in the Coastal range of mountains are reaching down toward zero. Fall is definitely on its way.
Expect Smoke on Today and increasing Friday
There is already some haze in the air from fires across the Western United States. Here is the forecast picture from firesmoke.ca (Using Google Earth KML here) for this morning.
You can see we are on just the edge of the smoke field and it is not very dense.
However that may change later today as more dense smoke moves in before noon with PM2.5 levels over 50.
The smoke pulls away tonight.
But southerly winds starting this weekend might bring more intense smoke up from the Oregon and California fires. We will have to wait to see. Friday noon looks not as bad potentially as today, but more widespread. These models can change quite a lot.
Showers possible Monday
The good news is that there are showers moving in as soon as Monday morning so we might get some relief from our intense dry spell through July and August (minus August 20 craziness).
Here’s the picture between 2-5AM Monday morning as rain moves in. It’s not a ton, but it will help.
More widespread rain penetrates the Pacific Northwest overnight Monday which should be very welcome for those fighting fires.
Summer Summaries posted.
As you will have probably noticed, the summaries for June, July and August have all been posted.
June and July were notable for their lack of major records. And August was notable for its incredible one day rain event which shattered rain records for all stations. Overall, the summer was neither overly hot, nor overly cold in terms of our averages over the past 30-40 years.
COVID-19 cases continue to rise.
The latest graphs are really not good.
We are fast approaching double the number of active cases we had in April.
Thankfully Hospital and ICU visits have not yet started to rise quickly even though they are at a higher spot than the July low. This is likely due to the different age profile of the cases but the risk remains and community transmission, including on Vancouver Island remains.
The picture nationally is similar. The Western provinces, except Saskatchewan are showing similar increases. The graph below shows percentage of daily increases in new cases. Many are hovering around 2-6%.
Newfoundland recently had new cases after many weeks with none. Ontario and Quebec are climbing slowly but percentage-wise they are not as bad as the others yet.
This graphs shows the progression of cases for the smaller provinces (ex. QC/ON) a little more clearly. Alberta being the standout among the smaller provinces with persistent growth even through the summer which is unique across Canada. You can see BC start to rise quickly starting mid-August. Everyone’s pandemic is different.
That’s it for today! Have a wonderful day back to school!
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