Coquihalla Summit
Earlier in the week, families were taking kids and dogs to the park, strolling along the beach, biking on the seawall and even leaving the tops down on their convertibles.
But by Friday morning, Lower Mainland residents were waking up to snow on the ground.
Environment Canada says the first Arctic front of the season moved across B.C. on Thursday. It brought a blast of cold air, strong winds and the first snowfall of the season to Metro Vancouver and Greater Victoria.
Communities and highway passes in the Southwest Interior and Kootenays also received significant snowfall.
Cranbrook set a new record of 20 centimetres, breaking the old record of 15.7 centimetres set in 1984.
Chilliwack also saw its earliest snowfall in 29 years.
Ten centimetres fell in Chilliwack, meaning this was also the heaviest snowfall this early in the season.
Some record-low temperatures were also recorded in Prince George, which hit -15 C (old record -14.4 C, set in 1961), Williams Lake, which hit -16 C, (old record -15 C, set in 1961), and at the Kamloops Airport, which hit -8 C, (old record -6.7 C, set in 1957).
Here's some of the other recorded snowfall amounts from Thursday and Friday (in centimetres):
Comox/Courtenay: 3 to 17
Chilliwack: up to 10
Cranbrook: 34
Kalamalka Lookout (Northern Okanagan): 16
Kamloops: 7
Kelowna: 3 to 19
Penticton: 3
Princeton: 16
Sparwood: 14
Squilax (Shuswap): 16
Tatlayoko (Chilcotin): 14
Vernon: 8
Victoria Airport: 7
Warfield: 23
Whistler: 13
Allison Pass: 14
Coquihalla Summit: 23
Helmer Lake: 28
Hope Slide: 14
Kootenay Pass: 32
Paulson Summit: 28
Pennask Summit: 54
Comment: While it could be argued that every winter season sees a record of either early snowfall or amount of snow occurring at some specific locality, what so far has marked this year out across the Northern Hemisphere, is the number of such records (see here to search for a selection). To further emphasize the trend of early snowfall, reports started appearing in August originating from Romania, Switzerland, Russia and Labrador and Alberta in Canada.
The start of September brought snow to Georgia 3 months early, while Mount Washington in New Hampshire saw the white stuff on the first day of the month. By the middle of September early snowfall had left a 12 foot snow base on mountains in Alaska, while Mammoth Lakes in California had snow one month earlier than usual. Over several different mountain ranges in Europe it was a similar picture with the high ground in Austria receiving a foot of snow.