Issue 59
November 17, 2005

Weather Trivia

 You Asked Us

Environment Canada's knowledgeable specialists answer questions about wildlife, air pollution, water, weather, climate change and other aspects of the environment.

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How do I obtain historical weather data for White Rock, British Columbia?

Environment Canada's Weather Office has a Climate Data Online tool. Try it to find out what the weather was like anywhere in Canada on a particular day, for a month, or for a whole year.

Just above the map of Canada, click on the Customized search button. You will be presented with 3 different search methods. In the middle one, Search by Station Name, enter the name of the location you are searching for, White Rock.

You will get a list of all the stations that have been in that location over the years, if there has ever been one. If no stations are found, you can also use the Search by Province section to see all the stations with available data in any province or territory.

After you choose a station, select the year, the month, and the day. Selecting Hourly in the data interval will give you weather conditions for every hour including temperature, humidity and wind information. Selecting Daily in the data interval will get you information about the maximum and minimum temperature, amount of precipitation (rain/snow), maximum wind gust and more for every day of a selected month. Selecting Monthly in the data interval will get you the monthly totals (this section is often not up-to-date by several months due to a longer quality control process). Finally, you can also select Almanac in the data interval to get daily averages and records.

For example: select White Rock Campbell Scientific in BC, select Daily information for November 2004 and press Go. You will find that on November 10th, 2004 the maximum temperature in White Rock, B.C. was 14.2 °C, the minimum temperature was 5.2 °C and there was no precipitation.

Looking for information that's a little older? White Rock's data goes back as far as 1929. On November 10th, 1929 the maximum temperature at the White Rock Campbell Scientific station in B.C. was 11.7 °C, the minimum temperature was 2.2 °C and there was no precipitation.

Another online resource that lists the monthly temperature averages across Canada is the Canadian Climate Normals tool which contains averages and extremes for nearly 1500 locations across Canada. In White Rock, B.C., the monthly temperature average is 6.6 °C for the month of November.

Visit the National Climate Data and Information Archive for these and other historical data tools.

Related Sites:

• National Climate Data and Information Archive
• Weather Office - Five Day Weather Forecasts