Last month was the wettest March on record in West Kootenay in terms of total monthly precipitation.
Monthly statistics provided by forecasters Ron Lakeman and Jesse Ellis of the Southeast Fire Centre in Castlegar show we received about three and a half times the average monthly snowfall (and the second most on record) as well as more than double the average monthly rain.
Daily precipitation records were also broken on the 12th, 15th, and 29th.
We received 97.8 millimeters of rain, compared to the average 47 millimeters; and 52.2 centimeters of snow, versus the average 14.8.
There was more rain in 1995 and more snow in 1971, but nothing matched last month's combined precipitation for March since record keeping began in the 1960s.
What's more, the first ten days of the month were relatively dry, thanks to an area of high pressure over the southern part of the province.
“A much more active pattern took control for the rest of the month as one Pacific frontal system after the next passed over the area, bringing snow or rain and quite often both,” Lakeman and Ellis wrote.
Temperatures, however, were pretty much normal, with a high of 12.3 on the 28th (ten degrees cooler than the record high) and a low of –7.6 early on the 7th (also about ten degrees milder than the record low).