Victoria's weather in 2022

 

After a year of extremes in 2021 (including the hottest temperature on record and the most annual precipitation on record), 2022 was not quite so extreme.

The mean temperature for 2022 (10.5 C) was slightly below the 30-year average of 10.7 C, while the annual precipitation of 658.5 mm was very close to the average of 656 mm.

Victoria experienced the warmest late summer/early fall on record in 2022.  August and October were both the warmest on record, while September was the second warmest. Overall, the August to October period was 1.7 degrees warmer than the 30-year average.  

March, June, and July were slightly above normal.  The remaining six months were all below normal temperatures.  In particular, April-May was 1.8 degrees below normal and November-December was 2.1 degrees below normal, making for a cold spring and a very cold late fall/early winter.

The hottest temperature of 2022 was 30.9 degrees on June 26.  There were 2 days in 2022 with daily maximums above 30 C, compared with the normal of 1.1 days.  There were 18 days with daily maximums above 25 degrees, double the average of 9.1 days.    

The coldest temperature of 2022 was -9.5 C on December 21.  For the second winter in a row, Victoria experienced a significant cold snap in 2022, with 4 consecutive days below freezing.  Prior to 2021, Victoria hadn't experienced such a long cold snap for 36 years (since November 1985).  There were 19 days in 2022 when the temperature went below 0, significantly higher than the long-term average of 9.5 days, and the most since 1996.  Of those days when temperatures dropped below freezing, 12 occurred in November and December.

The chart below shows the daily maximum and minimum temperatures at Victoria Gonzales in 2022, compared with the long-term normal temperatures.  The chart shows a cold snap in late February, and the cool spring, with highs consistently below normal from mid-April to the end of May.  This was followed by a short heat wave in late June, then fairly consistently above-average temperatures from August to October.  There was an abrupt shift to below normal temperatures in November and December, culminating in the severe cold snap in late December.

The chart below shows daily and cumulative precipitation at Victoria Gonzales for 2022.   The thing that really stands out is the extraordinary 3-month dry spell from July 19 to October 20. During that period there was just 0.6 mm of rain recorded at Victoria Gonzales, making it the driest 3-month period on record, not just for Victoria, but likely for any major Canadian city.  The remainder of the year saw 3 wet periods (October 21-November 8, November 22-30, and December 17-31).  These were separated by two unusually dry spells for what is typically the wettest time of year in Victoria: just 2 mm of rain over weeks from November 9-21 and just 12 mm during the first half of December.

There were 124 days with measurable precipitation in 2022, compared with the normal of 132 days.  The wettest day was October 30th, with 40.6 mm of rain.  There were 4 days with more than 25 mm of rain in 2022, a little above the average of 2.9 days annually.  

The chart below compares annual precipitation at Victoria Gonzales in 2022 with other locations in the region.  Thanks to its rainshadow location, Victoria is typically drier than most other locations, and that was the case once again in 2022.  However, while Victoria's annual precipitation was close to the 30-year average, it was below average at the Victoria Airport (90% of normal) and Vancouver (89% of normal), but slightly above normal in Seattle (103% of normal).  

2022 Annual Precipitation vs normal

Victoria received 54 cm of snow in 2022, more than triple the average of 16 cm, and the most snow in a calendar year since 1996.  (2021, with 44 cm of snow, was the second snowiest year in Victoria since 1996.)