Editor,
This is not a big deal — no building or roads are going to fail, life goes on — but underneath the insidiousness of this benign November weather there is a monster growing. Globally, our fragile biosphere is distorting into something unrecognizable, slowly but surely.
In Smithers the met site at the airport tells a little story of our benign November weather. It goes something like this:
Average monthly climate data for the period of record for the month of November:
- Daily Average is minus 2.3 degrees C
- Daily Maximum (daytime) is plus 0.8 degrees C
- Daily Minimum (night time) is minus 5.4 degrees C
November 2018, thus far:
- Daily Average is plus 1.0 degrees C
- Daily Maximum is plus 3.0 degrees C
- Daily Minimum is minus 1.1 degrees C
A shift on one or two degrees is well within the norms of chatter. A shift of over four degrees is rather significant.
Lots of folks can remember November with no snow in the valley bottom. I’d be willing to bet you won’t find a single person who remembers a November with no snow and as disturbingly mild as what we are witnessing. Not a one.
Respectfully,
J. B. McGonigal
Smithers