Despite recent chills, 2015 was the warmest year on record in Victoria, says a weather blogger and amateur number cruncher.
Steven Murray, a Victoria government worker with a special interest in following daily temperatures, said temperatures gathered at Environment Canada’s Victoria Gonzales automated weather station reveal 2015 to be the warmest year in the past 116 years.
“It’s kind of funny,” Murray said. “The last couple of weeks of December it has been particularly chilly, but overall for the year, it’s been the warmest.”
At Gonzales, where temperatures have been recorded since August 1898, the mean in 2015 was 11.7 C, compared with the normal 10.6 C.
The average maximum temperature at Gonzales in 2015 was 14.9 C and the average minimum was 8.4 C.
The previous warmest year at Gonzales was 2004, when the average maximum was 14.8 C and the average minimum was 8.2 C, with a mean temperature of 11.5 C.
Similar results were compiled at the Victoria International Airport, where Environment Canada has a more sophisticated operation, but hasn’t been recording the temperature for as long.
In 2015, the mean daily airport temperature was 11.3 C, another record, compared with the normal 10.0 C. The previous warmest year was 2004, with a mean temperature of 11.1 C.
Murray said a meteorologist in Seattle, which also set temperature records last year, has traced the increases to a large “blob” of warm water in the Pacific Ocean.
Meanwhile, according to Environment Canada’s website, Victoria Gonzales recorded a high of 4 C on Saturday, with temperatures dipping to freezing in the early hours.
Murray has been watching the cool temperatures over the past few weeks.
“I was kind of wondering there if the cold weather would pull down the average, but it’s still been the warmest,” he said.
To see Murray’s blog, go to victoriaweatherandclimate.blogspot.ca.
