Half of average January snow falls on Fort St. John in first four days

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Fort St. John snow in December 2025. (Beri Kenneally, submitted)

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — Fort St. John may be in for another snowy month as Environment Canada reports the region has already seen half its average January snowfall in the first four days of the year.

Directly following the snowiest December Fort St. John has experienced in more than 10 years, Environment Canada’s daily data reporting suggests January may follow suit.

Environment Canada measures snowfall and precipitation separately: snowfall is the amount of frozen precipitation measured in centimetres, such as ice pellets and snow. Meanwhile precipitation is the water equivalent of snowfall, and is measured in millimetres.

In January 2025, Environment Canada weather stations recorded 31.6 centimetres of both snowfall and precipitation in Fort St. John. As of January 4th, 2026, 17.5 centimetres of both snowfall and precipitation have already been recorded in the region.

The snowiest January in Fort St. John in recent times was recorded in 2015 at 63.2 centimetres, or 60.6 millimetres of precipitation.

Derek Lee, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, stated so far this month snowfall has been “on the high side.”

“Just for context, the whole month usually sees around 28 millimeters of precipitation in total,” Lee said. “I would say it’s quite significant in terms of how much has fallen.”

Looking ahead, Lee noted there was “more to come” in what is trending towards “a wetter than normal” winter, but that Environment Canada currently does not model too much snow in January.

“As far as I can tell from the latest model runs, it doesn’t look to be as snowy as last month,” Lee said.

Since mid-December, the City of Fort St. John snow crews have been supported by outside contractors to assist with snow-clearing efforts.

January 5th is forecast as increasing cloudiness with a chance of flurries and temperatures of -19 C and a wind chill of -35 C.

January 6th is expected to have clearing skies and temperatures around -9 C, and January 7th is predicted to be a mix of sun, clouds and flurries with temperatures around -12 C.