If it seemed like a dry start to spring this year, there are stats to back that up.
"It wasn't the driest, but it does rank up there," Environment Canada meteorologist Dave Wray tells Vancouver Is Awesome.
Normally the Vancouver area receives nearly 114 mm of rain over the month of March.
March 2021 saw just 34.5 mm.
"So we were at 30.3 per cent of normal," says Wray. "And that ranks as 8th driest since 1896. It's significant, it's very significant."
Meanwhile, Abbotsford had its sixth driest March and Kelowna its third driest. Wray chalks this up to a ridge of high pressure that pushed systems north.
To back that up he notes north coast towns went the opposite direction.
"The north coast, Smithers, Terrace, Prince Rupert, were wetter than normal," Wray explains. "Terrace and Prince Rupert had their third wettest March."
The famously damp Prince Rupert really cranked it up with 418 mm of precipitation. That's 209 per cent above normal (normal being just under 200 mm).
In Vancouver we "were under ridges of high pressure," says Wray. "Unfortunately for Prince Rupert that didn't extend up to them."
Those ridges still seem to be around to a certain extent, and while some weak systems are expected to hit Vancouver this week Wray doesn't think anything more than some light showers will fall.
While March was dry, Wray says it was the outlier as the previous months didn't skew too much for the normal. February was a little drier, but still 80 per cent of the normal precipitation fell.
