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Battered B.C. tops weather stories for 2006
ALAN BLACK
Canadian Press

TORONTO — The drenching rain, destructive wind and deep snow that pummelled British Columbia in November and December took the first and second spots on Environment Canada's list of the top weather stories of 2006.

Nine destructive storms battered Canada's West Coast since the beginning of November, three times the norm for the autumn period, the agency says in its annual report on the country's weather.

Stormy weather is not uncommon in B.C. at the end of the year, but the “ferocity and frequency of the storms this year is unprecedented,” said Environment Canada senior climatologist Dave Phillips, the report's author.

November blew in with fury as the West Coast was hit hard and often by drenching rain, howling winds and high tides that even prompted a rare tsunami warning.

The month ended in bitter cold and deep snow, again leaving thousands of people without electricity. Forty centimetres of snow gave the province its second deepest November snowfall in B.C. in 66 years of weather-keeping, while the month's rainfall broke or tied several rainfall records.

Then, just as storm-weary B.C. residents were recovering from November's wrath, three ferocious wind storms in mid-December caused more damage, toppling more than one thousand trees in Vancouver's picturesque Stanley Park.

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