VIDEO: La Niña may cause another cold winter in FSJ

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — Fort St. John’s 2022 to 2023 winter may look similar to last year’s winter thanks to “La Niña.”

Derek Lee, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, says the forecast temperature of zero degrees is below the seasonal average.

On Wednesday, Lee says the sun will come back, Fort St. John will see temperatures around four degrees Celsius, while Thursday and Friday will see some more windy conditions.

“Usually, a flow from the west will bring us some warmer weather and usually a flow from the north will bring the Peace region kind of cooler weather,” Lee said.

“So it’ll be a battle between those for the wintertime.”

In the longer term, he says this year may be a repeat of last year because of La Niña conditions.

“What La Niña does is that it brings cooler temperatures from the north for the interior,” he explained.

“Last year, we were quite cool during our winter and spring period for the peace because of the constant cooler air coming back down from the north.”

Lee explains that it’s hard to say, but it does look like the La Niña conditions will taper off earlier than last year.

“This year, it’s looking like La Niña will kind of end in February, and it becomes more neutral,” he said.

“Neutral is just in between El Nino and La Niña.”

He says they don’t know what will happen when it’s neutral, but it may not be as cold as last year.

Precipitation-wise, he says the region doesn’t get the most during the winter months. It mostly gets its precipitation during the summertime thunderstorms.

On Tuesday, Fort St. John received around six centimeters of snow on the ground, Lee says, which is not the most the region has seen.

In 2017, there were 38 centimeters of snow on October 25th and on the 26th, there was 45 centimeters of snow on the ground.

On Wednesday, Environment Canada expects a high of 5 degrees Celsius and a low of 4 degrees Celsius.

Thursday will see sunny weather with wind and a high of 9 degrees Celsius, and a low of 2 degrees Celsius.

Friday will also see sunny weather and a high of 7 degrees Celsius and a low of minus 2 degrees Celsius.