From the Fraser Valley flood of 1894 to the golf ball-sized hailstones that pelted the Okanagan in 1997, Keith Heidorn's The BC Weather Book: From the Sunshine Coast to Storm Mountain (Fifth House, $19.95) is a scientific summary of provincial weather history and a catch basin for trivia: The warmest average temperature in Canada on a calendar-year basis belongs to Sumas Canal in the Fraser Valley, averaging at 10.7 degrees Centrigrade. The top ten Canadian cities with the fewest days of the year below freezing are all in British Columbia, led by Vancouver, with only 46 freezing temperatures per year. The only city west of Ontario to receive 50 or more centimetres of snow in one day is Victoria--where it has happened three times. Canada's wettest and cloudiest city is Prince Rupert. But Lillooet-not Lytton-recorded the hottest-ever B.C. temperature at 44.4 degrees Centrigrade on July 16, 1942. 1-894004-89-2

[BCBW 2005]