Re: Langford’s weather watchers, News, March 16, 2011.
There are weather fluctuations and surprises.
For example, in 1936 Victoria had an unusually cold winter followed by a hot summer (the latter not surprising because it was in the middle of the warmest decade in the history of accurate records).
Circa 1959 another very cold spell occurred, though well into the cyclic decline of temperature that alarmists later tried to use to stampede governments into hurting humans.
In December 1996 Victoria had the worst snow and cold in many decades, in the second-warmest decade.
Generally speaking, it has been proven that weather is less severe at temperatures increase, but note that we are well into another cooling cycle and there are many factors at work.
A big problem is people’s memories are short, and their lifespan covers only a few extremes. Conditions do re-occur, such as the old area of Brisbane Australia flooding every few decades.
Yes, regional climate can vary — coastal B.C. cooled in the last few thousand years, for example. But on a decadal time horizon, we should look at the Pacific decadal oscillation, which tends to move air northward on this coast when in its high pressure phase.
The PDO affects precipitation on the coast and inland, which may be why salmon returns shift north and south along the coast of Alaska, B.C., Washington, and Oregon with change in the PDO.
Of course Victorians know of the conflicting wind patterns (cold air versus warm moist air, aka the “Pineapple Express”), that caused the huge 1996 dump of snow and many days of unusual cold.
Nevertheless, weather is not fully predictable, thus local real-time monitoring is good, especially when big hills separate Langford from official monitors, as noted in your March 16, 2011 article. And municipal people such as John Manson should look for changes in runoff due to different land use, when planning to handle water volume.
Keith Sketchley
Saanich