Beautiful fall colours mean winter isn’t far behind. Photo – 250 News.

Prince George, B.C. – The majority of Canadians may be forlornly looking ahead to harsh weather this winter but that is not the case in British Columbia.

While this winter is expected to be colder than usual with more precipitation than normal from the Alberta side of the Rockies to the Quebec border with New Brunswick, B.C. and in particular the Central Interior region will be warmer than average in the October-through-December period.

As summer comes to a close Sunday and makes way for the beginning of autumn, we spoke with Environment Canada meteorologist Andre Besson to get an idea of what the weather prognosticators are expecting for the final three months of the year. “Well it looks like we can expect temperatures to remain above normal, that is a high chance of temperatures being above normal on average for the period. Especially looking up to the end of November into December we do see that the greatest chance of temperatures being above normal will be more confined to the coast of British Columbia however inland there is about a 40% chance above average for that time of the year.”

Besson stresses that this prediction is based upon a comparison of temperature averages over a long period of time. “It’s tough to say what the variance is going to be this winter, basically because it’s too far ahead to really say anything in terms of how many severe weather events are we going to have. It’s just very difficult to say at this time. But what we see right now is a weak signature of a potential El Nino that will form for this winter. Most prediction models agree that we will likely have a weak El Nino event this winter and that will translate into slightly warmer temperatures on average over the (central interior) region and potentially drier episodes as well for this season.”

Besson qualifies his comments by reminding that it is still the weather we’re talking about and things can develop quickly. “We may have significant weather events, significant snowfall on a daily basis. And what people tend to remember of course is those weather systems that impact the region on a specific day. They don’t really look too much into the long term because it’s very much of an average at this point.”

Besson can’t say how much warmer the area is going to be but says based on what we saw during the summer he expects the trend of warmer temperatures to continue. “It’s possible it’s just only one degree above average for that time period in three months, so it might not amount to much. And in terms of precipitation it’s just too difficult to say at this time, it’s much more difficult to predict than temperature even.” He also notes that current models seem to suggest that January’s temperatures could be slightly above the averages for that month although there could be some daily situations in which the temperature drops below average.