We knew it was coming. But so far it's worse than expected.
At 4 p.m. Sunday afternoon, the temperature downtown sat at a relatively innocuous 2°C. By 8 p.m., it had dropped to -10. That’s a shocking 12-degree plummet in the space of just four hours, and already two degrees colder than the anticipated evening low.
By midnight it was -13. Add in wind chill, and it was in the neighbourhood of -25.
And PentictonNow knows of what it speaks. We foolishly took a mid-evening stroll along the Okanagan Lake waterfront and froze our face off in the cold temps and biting wind. We retreated to our car after just a few minutes.
In the coming days, it'll only get more treacherous. The forecasted high today is -9°C. Tuesday, which looks to be the worst day of the lot, we'll top out at -17. From there, the highs slowly climb back up to the freezing point, which we should hit in approximately a week.
You can expect lows the next three nights to be in the -20°C range.
Like Sunday, snow accumulations are expected to be light throughout the first serious Arctic blast of the season. Indeed, the week should bring should bring plenty of sun.
But don't be fooled. The roads will be icy and Environment Canada warns of "bitterly cold" conditions and the risk of frostbite.
As bad as it is for most of us, the homeless have it worse. These days there aren’t a lot of emergency shelter options beyond Main Street's Compass House.
But community activist Kristine Shepherd, who'll be doing her regular Monday Night Dinners at Nanaimo Square, is ready to hand out blankets, sleeping bags and other gear that might mean the difference between life and death.
"I know for sure that a good half of the people who come to the dinner are without homes or shelter," she said Sunday. "And for some of the people, it's too cold to even show up for dinner. So they just hunker down where they are. I think a lot of them are camped out at the hobo trails again."
Today's dinner begins at 5 p.m., and Shepherd said she'd welcome on site donations of warm clothing and warm outdoor sleeping gear.
Meanwhile, Keep the Cold Off Penticton, a group that provides mobile outreach from the back of the organizers' SUV, is expected to do their thing again throughout the cold snap. To find out more about Keep the Cold Off or to make a donation during this key time, hit up their Facebook page.
And take it easy out there. This is serious stuff.
