Alberniweather and Port Alberni Summary for May 2023
Story of the Month – Incredible Heat!
The featured image is a map of air quality stations across North America as smoke from fires in Canada poured into the USA early in June.
Apologies for the delay in getting this summary out. The Cameron Bluffs wildfire took over. But at long last, here is the May 2023 Summary. It is appropriate that this summary was delayed by a historic wildfire that has blocked off Port Alberni and the West Coast because it was an unprecedented and historic month of May that set the conditions for that wildfire.
In terms of Environment Canada stations:
1) Port Alberni set four all time daily high temperature records for the month of May including the highest Environment Canada May temperature ever recorded in Port Alberni: 36.0ºC at Robertson Creek.
2) At 34.3ºC the Airport was only 0.8ºC away from also breaking the highest ever previously recorded in the month.
3) The overall mean temperature for the month was 15.73ºC. The highest ever recorded.
4) The overall average maximum temperature was 23.79ºC at the Airport just 0.12ºC away from the highest ever recorded.
5) Rainfall wasn’t zero. But it was close. We only had one day of significant rainfall.
In the City, Alberniweather and all of the City based Personal Weather Stations recorded average minimum temperatures of around 10ºC. These are, again, the highest ever recorded in May and continues a long trend of rising minimum temperatures in both City/Harbour and Valley stations.
Obviously with all of these records we would expect to have averages higher than normal, and we did. Maximum temperatures at the Airport were over 5ºC above normal. In the City, they were over 6º. Minimums were more than 2ºC above normal at the Airport and over 4º in the City. These are truly stunning numbers. A normal “higher than normal” result would be 2 or 3º. Not 4 or 6.
All of these records had a huge impact on the forests as they dried out much earlier than normal and have led to the early start to the fire season.
Check out the stats and graphs below to see for yourself this month at the various Valley stations and see it compared to our full 120yr history of record keeping in the Alberni Valley.
Day Records Set this Month
Set at Airport* since 1994 and compared to Valley stations** for all time.
(since 1895 for rain, 1900 for temperatures, 1980 for snow on ground)
We set multiple heat records. The Airport set 6 new daily records in total including tying the historic all time high on May 14 and beating the historic all time high on May 15. However, the Airport was second to Robertson Creek station on the 13th, 14th, 15th, and 17th as Robertson set All Time records for the area.
- May 3 – High Temp 25.4ºC – All Time is 28.6ºC in 1946 at Beaver Creek.
- May 13 – High Temp 30.6ºC – New All Time Record 33.0ºC set at Robertson Creek (beats 31.1º in 1939)
- May 14 – Ties All Time High Temp 32.8ºC – New All Time Record 35.0ºC set at Robertson Creek (beats 32.8º in 1939)
- May 15 – All Time High Temp 34.3ºC – New All Time Record 36.0ºC set at Robertson Creek (beats 30.6º in 1925)
- May 17 – High Temp 30.5ºC – New All Time Record 31.5ºC set at Robertson Creek (beats 30.6º in 1956)
- May 19 – High Temp 28.2ºC – All Time is 30.0ºC in 1928 at Beaver Creek.
This Month’s Graphs from Historic Alberni Valley Weather Stations
Combining Environment Canada and other Personal Weather Stations
Latest values on the far right, click to enlarge/download.
City Values Compared to Normal
Please shift your phone to landscape/horizontal to see the table.
| Extreme (ºC) | Average (ºC) | (mm) | Wind (kph) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Location | Max | Min | Min | Mean | Max | Rain | Dir | Speed | Day |
| Alberniweather | 35.4 | 4.9 | 10.0 | 16.4 | 23.8 | 13.7 | SE | 53.1 | 4 |
| Alberni Elem | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA |
| Maquinna Elem | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA |
| Dave’s (Uptown) | 36.6 | 4.7 | 10.0 | 16.6 | 25.0 | 22.6 | NA | 22.5 | 20 |
| Nick’s (South Port) | 32.3 | 5.1 | 9.9 | 15.9 | 22.9 | 12.8 | NA | 12.9 | 14 |
| Kitsuksis (North Port) | 36.4 | 3.7 | 9.2 | 15.9 | 24.2 | 16.3 | NA | 25.1 | 29 |
| Combined City | 36.6 | 3.7 | 9.8 | 16.2 | 24.0 | 16.4 | SE | 53.1 | 4 |
| May Normal (Somass) 1971-2000 |
5.6 | 11.7 | 17.7 | 75.0 | |||||
| Difference from Normal | +4.2 | +4.5 | +6.3 | -58.6 (22%) |
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|
Extreme Day |
34.1 | -2.8 | 49.2 | 45 | |||||
| Max | Min | Min | Mean | Max | Rain (mm) | Dir | Speed | Day | |
| Extreme (ºC) | Average (ºC) | Wind (kph) | |||||||
| Days of Rain | >=0.2 mm | >=5 mm | >=10 mm | >=25 mm | |||||
| Normal | 14.6 | 4.8 | 2.3 | 0.33 | |||||
| This Month (Alberniweather) |
3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | |||||
Official Airport and Robertson Creek Environment Canada Stations Compared to Normal
Please shift your phone to landscape/horizontal to see the table.
| Extreme (ºC) | Average (ºC) | (mm) | Wind (kph) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Location | Max | Min | Min | Mean | Max | Precip | Dir | Speed | Day |
| 34.3 | 2.6 | 7.7 | 15.7 | 23.8 | 17.0 | ESE | 36 | 20 | |
| 36.0* | 4.0 | 8.2 | 16.5 | 24.8 | 18.2 | NA | |||
| May Normal (Robertson Creek) 1971-2000 |
5.5 | 11.9 | 18.3 | 123.7 | |||||
| Difference from Normal (from Airport) |
+2.2 | +3.8 | +5.5 | -106.7 (14%) |
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|
Extreme Day |
35.0 | -2.2 | 83.9 | NA | |||||
| Max | Min | Min | Mean | Max | Rain (mm) | Dir | Speed | Day | |
| *New Extreme for Month | |||||||||
| Days of Precipitation | >=0.2 mm | >=5 mm | >=10 mm | >=25 mm | |||||
| Normal | 14.3 | 5.1 | 2.8 | 0.4 | |||||
| This Month (Airport) |
5 | 1 | 1 | 0 | |||||
* May have used backup Environment Canada Data source at WeatherStats.ca for Missing Data
** Short Term means since 1994 at the new AVRA Airport. Airport Records are compared to the 30+ year weather stations of record since 1900 (1895 for rain) at Beaver Creek, Port Alberni “City” and Robertson Creek. Note that records pre 1950 may be more likely to over-estimate high temperatures.
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