More dry weather is expected over the coming week, extending the dry spell that has been July.
Ron Lakeman, meteorologist for the Southeast Fire Centre, says Castlegar residents can expect the weather to get hotter and drier over the next week.
“There’s a couple of little systems could clip us with a bit of cloud, with just a slight chance of shower or thunderstorm activity, but the general idea is that the area of high pressure, which is centered south of us, as in down in the States, will build northward and if anything get hotter and drier as we go through the next week,” says Lakeman.
“So the chance of getting any measurable rain between now and next Monday seems to be very slim to none.”
Castlegar has received 1.6 millimeters of rain so far this month — 1.4 mm on July 10 and 0.2 mm on July 14.
While it’s drier than it was during the July of the last bad fire year, 2015, it’s an improvement on 2003 — another bad fire year — when the area only received 0.4 mm during July.
The driest July on record was in 1985 when there was “a trace of rain.”
“As in no measurable rain,” explained Lakeman.
The normal long-term average amount of rain for July is 48.1 mm.