 Brothers Phoenix and Ethan Kulbaba take advantage of Saturday's mild weather to skip some rocks on Okanagan Lake at Gellatly Bay Aquatic Park in West Kelowna. |
While snow fell in the morning, by midday the temperature was 1 C along the waterfront in West Kelowna, so brothers Phoenix and Ethan Kulbaba, ages 10 and 8, respectively, shook off their gloves and started chucking rocks into the lake at Gellatly Bay Aquatic Park.
"We're here visiting from Calgary," said Phoenix.
"This is warm. When we left Calgary a couple of days ago, it was -22 C and we had lots of snow."
Parts of Central and Eastern Canada were buried under snow late last week after being blasted by a winter storm.
Snow fell in the Okanagan Saturday morning, but only a couple of centimetres. It stuck at higher elevations, but quickly melted on major roads and in the valley floor.
Before it had a chance to melt in Rutland, Sus Naka was out shovelling his driveway with help from his six-year-old grandson, Colton.
"He's a good little helper," said Naka.
"We thought we'd shovel before it got slushy. It's not a lot of snow, but it's heavy. And if you don't get rid of it, it creates a real mess."
The Okanagan has avoided big dumps of snow and frigid temperatures so far this winter.
When snow has fallen, it's been little more than a skiff, and while the mercury has dipped to -10 C at night, it has hovered around zero most days.
That pattern should continue at least for the foreseeable future, with the forecast calling for lows of -7 to -11 C overnight with a 30 per cent chance of snow and partly sunny days with highs around the freezing mark.
Of course, a little snow in the Valley means more snow in the mountains.
The high-elevation Okanagan Connector and Coquihalla highways from Peachland to Merritt and on to Vancouver have full-on winter conditions. Roads are slushy and covered with snow, and visibility is reduced due to blowing snow and fog.
On Thursday and Friday, there were at least a dozen crashes on the Connector, ranging from vehicles ending up in the ditch and two collisions to a couple of scary rollovers. Fortunately, there were no major injuries.
Const. Kris Clark of the Kelowna RCMP said all of the crashes were preventable if motorists had simply slowed down and driven according to conditions. The speed limit of 110 km/h on the Connector was posted with ideal dry, daylight, summer conditions in mind, and the state of the road now is far from that.
While the weather in the mountains may not be ideal for driving, it's making operators of the Okanagan's three major ski hills happy. Snow is accumulating on the hills, but temperatures are comfortable for skiing, snowboarding, skating, tubing and snowshoeing.
Big White near Kelowna has five centimetres of new snow and daytime temperatures around -7 C, Silver Star near Vernon has about the same, and Apex near Penticton has eight centimetres of new and -5 C.
