Yes B.C., it’s hot out there — but here’s why meteorologists aren’t calling it a ‘heat dome’ | 24CA News

With temperatures hovering to greater than 30 C in elements of the province this weekend, some B.C. residents could also be questioning why they are not listening to the time period “heat dome” as they did in 2021.

That yr, temperatures broke information throughout B.C., and the warmth brought about a whole bunch of deaths. 

Armel Castellan, a warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, says a warmth dome is a generic time period that denotes a warmth wave and a high-pressure ridge.

Castellan says though temperature information will possible be damaged this weekend, some key components differ from the circumstances that yr. 

“[This heat wave] does not have the potential to reach the same extremes we saw in June 2021 when we saw 25 degrees above seasonal temperatures,” Castellan stated throughout a technical briefing earlier this week. 

“We’re not looking at the same animal in that sense.”

Overnight cooling

During a warmth dome, a high-pressure system works to lure excessive temperatures close to the Earth’s floor. The warmth rises after which will get pushed again down, like a convection oven. 

The excessive temperatures in B.C. this weekend will not be trapped the identical manner and, most significantly, it’ll cool in a single day and supply some reduction. Castellan says longer nights presently of yr means extra of these cooler temperatures than in June. 

However, meteorologists and emergency preparedness officers are nonetheless urging warning as a result of most individuals aren’t used to the warmth but presently of yr. 

Those most vulnerable to warmth embody aged and pregnant individuals, infants and younger youngsters, and other people with pre-existing well being circumstances like diabetes. 

Different atmospheric circumstances

Jalena Bennett, a climate skilled with the University of British Columbia’s Weather Forecast Research Team, says this weekend’s warmth wave does not have the identical atmospheric circumstances as the warmth dome of 2021. 

A stationary ridge over Vancouver and a trough of low stress to the east and the west are additionally current this weekend, Bennett stated, however in the course of the warmth dome of 2021 the one to the west was additional south and blew in additional sizzling air. 

The different side of the warmth dome in 2021 was its length: greater than every week. This warmth wave, alternatively, needs to be over by Tuesday. 

Bennett says it isn’t clear precisely how excessive temperatures will rise in B.C., and he or she provides that there could also be pockets of maximum warmth like there was in Lytton in 2021. 

“It’s definitely going to be hot,” she stated.

Changing climate patterns

Bennett says temperatures this excessive are positively not regular, and that though it is exhausting to say definitively if local weather change is behind this weekend’s warmth wave, it positively is the reason for irregular climate patterns. 

“The probability of these events occurring within two super close-by years would be quite low without a global warming event that we’re seeing with climate change,” she stated.