How can it be sunny and rainy at the SAME TIME?

WEATHER WEDNESDAY! It’s not often you have to match your rain boots with your sunglasses but this is common June weather! 🌦But how can it be sunny and rainy at the SAME TIME?

We’ve seen a lot of this recently here in the Okanagan Valley and here’s why:

This often happens when we have cooler air at the upper levels. Often you will hear me talk about an upper low, and that’s exactly what it describes - an area of cooler air that is present in the mid- troposphere near 5000m.

Not only can it rain and be sunny all in the same afternoon, but there may be instances when you need both your sunglasses and your umbrella!
These upper lows that develop over our region in late spring or early summer make the atmosphere unstable. How quickly the air temperature changes as you go up in the atmosphere determines the level of instability. Rapid changes can lead to sudden downpours, mixed precipitation or even thunderstorms.

When you get a break of sun, the sun heats up the surface of the earth. This creates an even greater difference in temperature between the lower part and the upper part of the atmosphere - making the conditions very changeable and unpredictable.

This is often why we see convective showers in the afternoon - because the sun’s heat can cause showers to develop!

#weather #cloudy #mothernature #rain #storm #seasons #sun #June2020 #kelowna #okanagan #showers #precipitation #meteorology #weslaweather #wx #statistics #climate #nowyouknow #weatherwednesday #weather #mountains #convection #moisture #spring #sun #forecasts #thunderstorm #rainbows #radar #britishcolumbia #bc #canada

What is a weather radar and how does it help with weather forecasting?

Environment Canada operates 4 radar sites in our province of BC, with a total of 31 sites across the country.

The only radar in the BC Southern Interior is located at the top of Silver Star Mountain. For those of you who have biked or skied there, you may have noticed the giant white ball at the top of the Comet chairlift!

Prince George, Aldergrove, and Victoria are the homes to the other 3 British Columbia radar sites.

The radar is a very useful tool for meteorologists and it is used for: 💦Determining the type of precipitation that is falling (rain vs snow vs hail) ❄️ Tracking storms and calculating intensity ⛈Seeing how fast a storm is coming in.


Each radar sends out a pulse of electromagnetic energy. When that piece of energy interacts with something in the atmosphere (whether it is a raindrop, a snowflake, a hailstone, or a bird), it will bounce the energy back to the weather radar. This is how the radar senses what is surrounding the area.

June is typically the wettest month of the year in Kelowna so it is a busy time of year for the weather radar!


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May 2020 received ample precipitation!

2020 started off very dry. From January to April of this year, Kelowna received only 53.5mm of precipitation - just a little over half of what the average amount has been for these months. For comparison, from the years 1981 to 2010, the average amount of precipitation that Kelowna received in the first four months in each of these years was 100.7mm. (Precipitation is measured as the water equivalent of all types of precipitation, including snow and rain.)

Last month was a different story. May received an ample amount of precipitation. The month of May is typically the second wettest month of the year in Kelowna behind June with an average of 40.2 mm of precipitation, however we received more than twice as much in May 2020 with 80.9mm at the Kelowna airport weather station.

Our daytime high temperatures were very close to seasonal last month at the UBCO weather station. May 2020 had an average of 20.3C for afternoon temperatures, compared to the seasonal average of 20.2C.

Overnight lows were a few degrees warmer than average with May 2020 averaging at 8.2C, compared to seasonal lows at 5.4C. All averages in this article are based on the Canadian climate normals 1981-2010 data.


#weather #cloudy #mothernature #rain #storm #seasons #sunny  #kelowna #okanagan #dry #showers #precipitation #meteorology #weslaweather #wx #statistics #climate #kelownanow #thundershowers #may #may2020 #storms