Mother Nature hasn’t been particularly friendly to Osoyoos residents over the past year.
But there’s no doubt we’ve all become spoiled as we traditionally get to enjoy the longest and hottest summers in Canada and some of the shortest and mildest winters in the country.
After one of the most mediocre summers most of us can remember – endless rain in June and horrible, cold, windy weather the first two weeks in July when the thermometer usually hovers between 35 and 40 Celsius – Mother Nature hasn’t been overly kind to us this winter either.
As anyone who lives in the South Okanagan for any extended period of time knows, a traditional winter usually involves one very short cold snap most often after Christmas and early in the New Year where temperatures dip to the minus 10 to 15 range for a few days.
Most of the time, the temperature ranges between minus five and plus five with endless weeks of cloud cover, very little sun, but some of the mildest winter weather in the country.
But the winter of 2016-17 has hit and hit hard with almost two full months of unseasonably cold and windy weather and far more snow than we’re usually subjected to.
For anyone who comes from any province east of B.C. knows, this is what “a real winter” is like for them virtually each and every year.
The good news is it looks like this long stretch of bitter cold temperatures is going to end soon with Environment Canada forecasting a return to normal seasonal temperatures by this weekend or early next week.
While we’ve faced more bad weather over the past 12 months than we’re all used to, the reality is we still enjoy more great weather than almost anywhere else in Canada.
And one giant bonus that has come with this extended spell of cold winter weather is the sun has shone much more often than it usually does in Osoyoos this time of year.
That has been a very welcome change as one of the only complaints made by longtime Osoyoos residents is how gloomy and dark it becomes for weeks on end as the dog days of winter drag on from November until the middle of January.
While most Canadians still face two or three more months of bitter winter weather, things should return to normal here in Osoyoos and across the South Okanagan very soon.
And that means golf season and warm weather won’t be far around the corner.
The best news of all is mediocre summers and long, cold winters are the exceptional rather than the rule in the South Okanagan and most of us will move forward with confidence knowing Mother Nature will become our best friend once again very soon.
