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The Hottest Summer in Canada Award goes to Kamloops

I still don’t know what a Kamloops winter will be like, but thanks to Darren Barefoot, I’ve discovered that my new hometown boasts the hottest summers in all of Canada. Environment Canada has a section called Weather Winners that provides the details. Some highlights:

Hottest summer – Kamloops BC, 26.90°C
Coldest winter – Yellowknife NT, -28.90°C
Most freezing days – Thompson MB, 240 days
Fewest freezing days – Vancouver BC, 46 days – I’m gonna miss this one
Sunniest year-round – Medicine Hat AB, 2512.90 hours
Least sunshine year-round – Prince Rupert BC, 1229.10 hours
Most sunny days year-round – Calgary AB, 333 days
Fewest sunny days year-round – Prince Rupert BC, 250 days
Wettest city (rain and snow) – Prince Rupert BC, 2593.60 mm

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 15th, 2004 at 10:19 am and is filed under Life and living. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “The Hottest Summer in Canada Award goes to Kamloops”

  1. Derek Says:
    September 27th, 2004 at 11:22 pm

    I think those records are only for cities. Towns and villages in the Fraser Canyon (especially Lytton) routinely have hotter summers than Kamloops. I’m sure there are colder places than Yellowknife and Thompson too, just not with a sizable population.

  2. Justin Says:
    September 28th, 2004 at 8:14 am

    Derek: I’m glad you mentioned that. Once I read your comment, I realized that you must be right, so I went back to the site and found a link to About the Study where they explain in greater detail:

    From the 2001 Canadian census, the top 100 cities population were selected, based on population. This represents about 70% of the Canadian population. To be chosen for the list, a city had to have a population of at least 15,000 people, and an official weather station nearby where Environment Canada instruments are used and standard observing procedures followed. For cities without a complete weather observing program, one or more nearby weather stations were used to generate representative values for the area, where possible.

    The Canadian “weather winners” listed here are compiled for 100 cities but they do not necessarily represent the extremes for the entire country. Quite likely, higher amounts of rainfall, colder temperatures and stronger winds have occurred in many smaller communities not included in the list of familiar locations. Often, small out-of-the-way places are the true weather champions in Canada. For example, Glacier National Park (Mt. Fidelity) BC with its 1471 cm of average annual snowfall, or Manyberries AB with 2568 sunshine hours annually, or St. Lawrence NF with 132 foggy days a year, are the true weather champions in these respective categories.