Lisa Scott
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (July 27/05) - Ask Jan Vallillee if it's been a hot summer in Yellowknife and she'll take you out on her shadeless deck and show you just how stifling it's been.

The thermometer mounted on her Range Lake Road home has regularly jumped above 40C. It's been hot enough for visiting friends from Thailand to complain about.

She and her partner regularly entertain and sweat it out on her south-facing deck.

"This summer has definitely been warmer earlier in the year," says Vallillee, who has lived in the North for 36 years.

"There is far more humidity than in years past," she says.

While Vallillee's gauge may say 45C, the hottest day of the year so far was 27.8C on July 14, according to Environment Canada's website and meteorologist Dan Kulak.

Compare that to the normal daytime high of 16.8C for a typical July and Kulak says that's pretty warm for Yellowknife. He credits it to southern winds blowing North. "You get those type of temperatures when the jet stream pushes fairly far North, then the storms tend to get far North as well," he says from Edmonton.

The storms that brought a flash flood to Vallillee's street on the hottest day of the year usually cause temperatures to drop below normal for a few days afterward, says Kulak.

As for the humidity that has wreaked havoc on hairdos across the city, it arrives in southerly winds, sometimes from as far as the Gulf of Mexico.

Yellowknife's summer has been pretty stable compared to some of the wacky weather reports across the country.

Toronto had 14 days above 30C in June and 12 days above 30C in July. Moosonee, on the southern tip of James Bay, clocked the hottest temperatures in the country July 11, reaching a whopping 36C.

The Prairies have rebounded from drought to too much rain, while British Columbia has had cool and cloudy weather with two to three times the precipitation, according to Environment Canada.

Even with some chilly weather recently in Yellowknife, Vallillee is confident she'll get some more deck time outside.

"We love to come up here, put the sunblock on and hang out," she says.

Enjoy it Jan, because temperatures in August are typically 2.5C colder than July.