A heat wave across the south coast of British Columbia led to new temperature records on Monday. It led to a new BC Hydro consumption record. Kendall Hanson has more.
Temperatures soared across British Columbia’s South Coast on Monday.
On Vancouver Island, Victoria and Port Alberni experienced the hottest Aug. 28 on record. The maximum temperature at the Victoria Gonzales weather station was 28.7 C. Port Alberni saw a high of 35.9 C.
Other weather stations that set daily maximum temperature record were West Vancouver at 30.8 C, Vancouver Harbour at 27.2 C, Squamish at 32.7 C and Lillooet at 36 C.
Environment Canada also said the following stations set daily maximum temperature records at the following stations:
Lytton Area 39.1 C (old record 37.2 C in 1967)
Pemberton Area 36.8 C (old record 34.6 C in 2002)
Clearwater Area 35.0 C (old record 34.4 C in 1929)
Cranbrook Area 33.9 C (old record 33.3 C in 1929)
Squamish Area 32.7 C (old record 30.6 C in 1967)
Sparwood Area 32.5 C ( old record 31.7 C in 1986)
The agency said the hot temperatures were due to a strong ridge of high pressure over the southern part of the province.
BC Hydro set a new record for summer power consumption on Monday evening when peak hourly demand, which is the hour that customers use the most electricity, reached 7,851 megawatts.
The demand for electricity increased by 12 per cent over last Monday’s peak hourly demand, which was 7,022 megawatts. According to BC Hydro, the previous record was set on Aug. 11, 2014 at 7,468 megawatts.
The record set on Monday is the second power consumption record broken this year. On Jan. 3, BC Hydro recorded the highest ever peak hourly demand at 10,126 megawatts.
Alexa Huffman
