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Vancouver just broke a 122-year temperature record for cold weather today

Hurray?
According to Environment Canada, there hasn’t been a day this cold in Vancouver since 1897. File pho
According to Environment Canada, there hasn’t been a day this cold in Vancouver since 1897. File photo Dan Toulgoet

The Metro Vancouver weather forecast calls for another chilly night after temperatures broke a weather record that is more than 100 years old.

Today’s record was set after the city saw an unusually cold Wednesday, Oct. 9. In fact, Vancouver hadn’t seen an Oct. 9 this cold since 1935 — 84 years ago. Back then, temperatures dipped to 1.1°C. Prior to that, temperatures dipped to zero degrees in 1916.

Now, Vancouver saw temperatures dip to a freezing -0.7 C, and temperatures are expected to fall to 1 C or even lower tonight.

Vancouver Is Awesome spoke to Armel Castellan, a meteorologist at Environment Canada, who explained why the temperatures dipped so low, as well as what we can expect in the days to come.

“Vancouver’s previous record for Oct. 10 was set in 1916 when temperatures dipped to -0.6 C,” reports Castellan. “So we beat it by -0.1 degrees.”

While that may not seem like much, Castellan notes it is very unusual for temperatures to dip into the minuses in the first two weeks of October. He says this has only happened 19 times in more than 100 years. Further, there hasn’t been a day this cold since the records began in 1897.

Castellan adds the last time Vancouver saw temperatures dip below zero in the first two weeks of October was back in 1966 on Oct. 13.

As for tomorrow, Castellan states that the previous record of -0.6 was set in 1972.

“We can’t know for certain if we’ll beat that, but we are forecasting clear skies which allow for cold temperatures.”

Castellan explains that there have only been two occasions that temperatures have dipped below zero since 2000. He says that the last two days in October 2006 saw temperatures dip to a chilly -2.6 C and -2.8C. After that, the lowest October temperature was recorded on Oct. 11, 2016 at zero degrees.

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