Summer interrupted by week-long wall of rain
Posted Aug 8, 2011 05:38:30 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
All plans of enjoying the beach or the boardwalk will be cancelled today – and likely for the rest of the week – thanks to a supremely soggy forecast.
Environment Canada has issued a rainfall warning for mainland Nova Scotia, predicting between 10 and 15 millimeters of rain during the day and another 30 to 40 mm overnight.
Meteorologist Richard LaFortune said the network’s criteria for issuing a rainfall warning is a predicted 50 mm of rain.
“There is some uncertainty with this as to exactly which areas will see the 50 plus millimeters,” LaFortune tells News 95.7. “It looks likely for anywhere, pretty much, in mainland Nova Scotia. Halifax will probably see amounts pushing 50 millimeters by late evening.”
There is rain in the forecast for the entire week, but LaFortune said Nova Scotia should see the majority of predicted rain Monday and scattered showers for the rest of the week.
He said it’s too early to know if there will be a return of hot weather in the coming weeks.
New Brunswick is also under a rainfall warning.
The rain is expected to last all week long on the East Coast with temperatures hovering around 19 degrees most days.
Similar conditions have been reported on the West Coast where this year’s rain is a welcome change to the stifling, hot, dry conditions which lead to approximately 1,000 forest fires in British Columbia last year.
Provincial Fire Information Officer Alyson Couch said this year there’s been about 300.
“No one can really recall a start like this. It’s the slowest start we’ve seen in the last decade,” Couch told the Canadian Press.
“We just haven’t seen those dry lightning storms,” she said. “Any lightning storms we’ve seen have been accompanied by rain. We are just starting to really get into those warmer conditions. It’s been really cool and wet up until about now.”
A week of hot weather in B.C. has increased the danger rating to high or extreme in some areas of the province.
