From one extreme to the other, June completely erased Nova Scotia’s early spring rainfall deficits
As the month of June began, Nova Scotia was on fire.
On June 1, temperatures soared above 20 and below 30 throughout the county as crews battled wildfires in the Upper Tantallon area and Shelburne County.
At the time it had been one of the driest springs on record, but there was hope on the horizon.
A huge rain shower in early June brought some relief and that was just the tip of the iceberg.
What followed was a relentless parade of unsettled weather.
The past few weeks have been particularly difficult along the Atlantic coast. A sustained tropical current on land has resulted in clouds, periods of heavy rain, thunderstorms, drizzle and fog.
In Halifax, the past 11 days have been the wettest and gloomiest start to a summer we’ve seen since 2009.
The good news in all this?
The very wet June and early July in the province have all but erased the early spring rain shortages.
In Halifax, for example, total rainfall since April 1 is now 339 millimeters, which is 95 percent of normal for that three-month period.
In the Annapolis Valley, totals in Greenwood since April 1 are 134 percent of normal for the three-month period.
Elsewhere on the mainland, three-month totals are also between 80 and 100 percent.
Cape Breton has continued to be drier than normal as of April 1, just 63 percent of Sydney’s normal.
Trend in the right direction
The good news is that there is no choice but up, so we are looking at a better forecast for the next few days, especially along the Atlantic coast.
The warm, humid, misty, tropical current is coming to an end and we will see more sunshine in the mix later this week and over the weekend.
But the bad news is that the blocking high pattern over the North Atlantic isn’t going away any time soon, so we should temper our expectations for a complete weather reversal right away.
Next week won’t bring wall-to-wall sunshine, but it won’t look nearly as dark, gloomy or damp – and there’s more chance of sunshine.
Longer term, forecast models are signaling a breakdown of the blocking high as we head into mid-July, which should promote a better overall forecast for Nova Scotia.
