It’s not your imagination: Vancouver’s June has been a lot rainier than usual

It’s hardly been the introduction to summer we’ve wanted in Metro Vancouver.

While Environment Canada doesn’t track visible sunlight anymore, Senior Meteorologist Matt Loney says rainfall numbers do tell the story. Metro Vancouver has already had 11 days of rain so far in June.

“The average for the entire month is 11 to 12 days, so we’re already matched the entire month’s total [average].”

As far as actual rain that has fallen, Vancouver is already surpassed the average expected for June, and we’re not even halfway through the month.

“We’ve already had 63 millimetres at Vancouver International Airport. The average for the month is around 50 millimetres for June entire, based on the 30-year climate normals.”

This is expected to be the norm for at least the rest of June. However, Loney says there’s no reason at this point to believe we will see another heat dome.

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Our spring, Loney says the main climate driver has been La Nina.

“We’ve seen these cooler than normal temperatures off the west coast of South America. And that, in turn, has induced some troughing over the Northeastern Pacific, which has influenced our weather,” he explained.

“The troughing has been around so long that the ocean temperatures haven’t warmed up. And so it’s become like its own self perpetuating system.”