The high June temperatures were the hottest ever recorded in Cranbrook, and the temperature on June 28 broke the previous record fro June from 1987.
“In June, nine new daily temperature records were set, including the all-time June maximum temperature,” said Lisa Caldwell, Environment Canada Meteorologist.
The hottest temperature recorded was 37.4 degrees which occurred on June 28, 2015 — that beat out the old record of 35.9 degrees from June 14, 1987.
“June 2015 was also the warmest June on record for the Cranbrook area,” Caldwell said. Those records go back over 110 years ago to 1901.
The mean temperature for the month, which takes into account the daily highs and nightly lows, was 18.2 degrees, which is above the normal mean temperature of 15 degrees for June.
She noted that the precipitation for June when looked at as a monthly value doesn’t look so bad because there was 61.6 per cent of the normal precipitation for the area.
“However, if you dig a little deeper you find out the actual amount of precipitation for the month was 38.2 mm,” she said. “21.6 of those millimetres fell all in one day and that was June 2. So you got one really wet day right in the beginning of the month, and then you had little bits of rain on 11 other days.”
She noted the other bits of rain don’t add up to a lot.
The weather is going to return to more normal levels for July, Caldwell said.
“The weather maker has been that broad-scale upper ridge and it has been sitting over the province,” she said. “We’re beginning to see its demise and beginning with this coming weekend, it’s going to shift and we’re going to move into a southerly flow in the upper levels of the atmosphere — that can bring in moisture and weather systems.”
She said the broad scale upper ridge is like turning a tea cup upside down and putting that over a lit candle — it traps the heat and doesn’t let rain fall through.
“It’s a very oppressive, very stable weather system,” she said. The system originates in the desert southwest around Arizona and Nevada.
She said this ridge is not unique for this time of year, except for how long it stayed.
“What was different about this one is it just lasted for practically the entire month and didn’t move,” she said.
For next week, the forecast is looking to be around more normal temperatures.
“Temperatures in the Cranbrook area now are finally going down to 21, 22 degrees for daily highs next week,” she said. “And we’re probably going to see probably a pretty good chance of rain on a few days.”
She said temperatures may be a bit hotter here, but should be in the 25 degrees area.