The Southeast Fire Centre has released their monthly weather report for July for Castlegar and it was another month that saw records fall like so much rain. Although July wasn't as wet as our record setting June, it was plenty wet. The monthly rainfall, in fact, was more than double the average for July.
"The 117.1 millimetres of rain which fell makes July 2012 the second wettest July on record, only July of 1998 was wetter with 143.2mm," said Ron Lakeman of the Southeast Fire Centre. "Far different from last month there were only nine days with measurable rain."
The mean monthly temperature, however, was 1.6 degrees warmer than normal at 21.5. The hottest day was in July was the 8th when it was 35.9. The coldest was the 4th, at a chilly 6.6.
"The initial three days of July were very similar to the previous month (the wettest on record) with a Pacific disturbance producing frequent showers and thundershowers," said Lakeman. "High pressure followed (finally ) for a dry and very warm/hot period between the 5th and 13th. Showers and thundershowers returned the night of Friday the 13th and continued to plague the area at times through Friday the 20th as a small upper low pressure system stalled over Washington-Oregon pumped bands of moisture northward."
A locally intense thundershower produced the greatest one day rainfall and likely the greatest one hour amount of rain on record for Castlegar during the afternoon of the 17th, said Lakeman.
"Approximately 50mm of rain fell between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. with another 14.8 mm recorded during the following half hour," he said. "The total rain for the 24 hour period was 68.4mm which is more than the average July total of 50.8 mm. The previous one day max rainfall was 56 mm from July 10, 1998."
The remainder of the month was generally warm and dry with high pressure once again in control or disturbances diverting around the area.