british columbia province CanadaSchools and universities were closed on Monday (28th) due to the sweltering heat that pushed the temperature to a national record high over the weekend, in a country widely known for its bitterly snowy winters.
Leighton, a city in the center of the province, about 200 kilometers north of Vancouver, reported a temperature of 46.6 degrees Celsius on Sunday. Before the weekend, Canada’s historic high was 45C, recorded in Saskatchewan in 1937, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada.
A much warmer Monday was expected, as most of western Canada set local temperature records, forcing people to take shelter on beaches and lakes. Social media posts with tips on how to keep cool without air conditioning sprout in a county where less than 40 percent of homes have this device, according to a 2018 study by BC Hidro.
Greg Flatow, a senior researcher on environment and climate change, said that intense heat for several days is unusual in the Pacific Northwest, which is more accustomed to long periods of rain than sunlight, and is caused by a high pressure system that does not move. Canada, Victoria.
“Temperatures rise a lot during the day, don’t cool off much at night and stay relatively constant, unlike the common kind of weather events here on the West Coast, which arrive across the Pacific and creep over us,” Flatow said.
“It shows that the climate is changing. Science has told us for a long time, but to really immerse ourselves in it because here we have to sleep in the basement to keep it cool — it really highlights the change.”
