Sunset is at 5:44 pm, Monday, February 19, 2024, inching BC and the Sunshine Coast closer to Spring. In 29 days (March 19), spring will be arriving in the qathet region.The Family Day weekend has been chilly, but dry and sunny.
Family Day sees mild temperatures
Today the temperature will hit a high of nine degrees Celsius with a low of zero this evening. According to the Weatherhood app,Tuesday to Thursday there is a more than 80 per cent chance of rain. Friday and Saturday will see highs of 10 degrees with sun during the day and lows of zero in the evening. On Sunday it is predicted to snow in the qathet region. The Weatherhood top five ranking for today has Whistler as coldest region, at minus three degrees, and qathet is in second place at zero degrees (earlier today) and Squamish third coldest, is at 1.9 degrees.
Leap year
"This year February gets an extra day. Instead of 28 days, this year February will have 29. Thanks to leap year, our seasons will always occur when we expect them to occur, and our calendar year will match the Earth’s sidereal year," according to the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian.
A calendar year is typically 365 days long and loosely defines the number of days it takes the Earth to complete one orbit around the Sun.
However, a leap year, also called a sidereal year by scientists, is slightly longer than the calendar year and needs to be accounted for.
According to Bob Craddock from the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian: "If we didn’t account for this extra time, the seasons would begin to drift. This would be annoying if not devastating, because over a period of about 700 years, our summers, which we’ve come to expect in June in the northern hemisphere, would begin to occur in December."
Snowfall greatest in BC mountain range
BC's coast doesn't typically get a lot of snowfall. Canada's great north is usually relegated to the eastern provinces of Ontario and Quebec. However, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada: "In Canada, the greatest snowfall overall occurs in the Selkirk Mountains of southern British Columbia. Moist Pacific air carries precipitation to high elevations during winter, resulting in substantial snow accumulation. Glacier National Park hosts Canada's snowiest weather station, located on Mount Fidelity at an elevation of 1,890 metres, averaging a staggering 1,388 centimetres of snow annually."
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