Using data from Environment Canada, these are the 25 coldest/warmest days in BC weather stations.
Something new I learned was that PUNTZI MOUNTAIN was a Pinetree Line base. While I was never anywhere near Puntzi Mountain, a long, long time ago I did spend 2 nights at the Kamloops Pinetree Line base. The “new” computer room was pretty big. The “old” computer room was massive.
Coldest
| Name | DATE | MINTEMP | MAXTEMP |
| PUNTZI MOUNTAIN (AUT) | 2014-02-06 | -41.1 | -14.7 |
| PUNTZI MOUNTAIN (AUT) | 2014-02-07 | -40.1 | -12.8 |
| NELSON NE | 2014-02-07 | -40 | -4.5 |
| PUNTZI MOUNTAIN (AUT) | 2014-02-05 | -39.7 | -15.6 |
| PUNTZI MOUNTAIN (AUT) | 2014-02-08 | -38.9 | -13.9 |
| PUNTZI MOUNTAIN (AUT) | 2014-02-09 | -38.6 | -12.1 |
| PLEASANT CAMP | 2014-02-23 | -38 | -3 |
| DEASE LAKE (AUT) | 2014-02-10 | -37.7 | -19.3 |
| BUFFALO LAKE | 2014-02-06 | -37.5 | -15 |
| DEASE LAKE A | 2014-02-10 | -37.1 | -19.1 |
| BLUE RIVER A | 2014-02-08 | -36.6 | -11 |
| BLUE RIVER A | 2014-02-07 | -36.5 | -13 |
| BUFFALO LAKE | 2014-02-05 | -36.5 | -16.5 |
| BUFFALO LAKE | 2014-02-08 | -36.5 | -13 |
| FORT NELSON A | 2014-02-11 | -36.3 | -18.9 |
| BURNS LAKE DECKER LAKE | 2014-02-07 | -36.2 | -12.3 |
| CLINTON A | 2014-02-06 | -36.2 | -14.3 |
| FORT NELSON A | 2014-02-13 | -35.8 | -18.6 |
| DEASE LAKE (AUT) | 2014-02-06 | -35.7 | -18.2 |
| BLUE RIVER A | 2014-02-06 | -35.6 | -15.3 |
| BURNS LAKE DECKER LAKE | 2014-02-06 | -35.6 | -14.2 |
| BLUE RIVER CS | 2014-02-06 | -35.5 | -14.4 |
| BUFFALO LAKE | 2014-02-07 | -35.5 | -17.5 |
| BLUE RIVER CS | 2014-02-07 | -35.4 | -13.4 |
| DEASE LAKE A | 2014-02-06 | -35.3 | -18.8 |
Warmest
| Name | DATE | MINTEMP | MAXTEMP |
| CHROME ISLAND | 2014-02-14 | 4 | 15 |
| TAHSIS VILLAGE NORTH | 2014-02-25 | 3 | 15 |
| TAHSIS VILLAGE NORTH | 2014-02-27 | 4 | 14.5 |
| ZEBALLOS MURAUDE CREEK | 2014-02-27 | 3 | 14.5 |
| WHITE ROCK CAMPBELL SCIENTIFIC | 2014-02-28 | 3.4 | 14.3 |
| OSOYOOS CS | 2014-02-12 | -0.9 | 14.1 |
| CASTLEGAR BCHPA DAM | 2014-02-28 | -9 | 14 |
| PORT MELLON | 2014-02-28 | 3.1 | 13.8 |
| OSOYOOS CS | 2014-02-13 | 0.2 | 13.6 |
| SQUAMISH AIRPORT | 2014-02-27 | 1.3 | 13.6 |
| CHROME ISLAND | 2014-02-13 | 5 | 13.5 |
| GOLD RIVER TOWNSITE | 2014-02-28 | 1 | 13.5 |
| PENTICTON A | 2014-02-12 | -1.5 | 13.3 |
| TOFINO A | 2014-02-28 | 5.4 | 13.3 |
| PENTICTON A | 2014-02-13 | -1.2 | 13.2 |
| SQUAMISH AIRPORT | 2014-02-28 | 0.8 | 13.2 |
| QUALICUM BEACH AIRPORT | 2014-02-13 | 2.9 | 13.1 |
| GOLD RIVER TOWNSITE | 2014-02-27 | 1.5 | 13 |
| PITT MEADOWS CS | 2014-02-28 | 1.9 | 13 |
| SUMMERLAND CS | 2014-02-12 | 0.2 | 13 |
| TAHSIS VILLAGE NORTH | 2014-02-28 | 1 | 13 |
| ASHCROFT | 2014-02-13 | -0.1 | 12.9 |
| DELTA BURNS BOG | 2014-02-14 | 1.9 | 12.7 |
| DELTA BURNS BOG | 2014-02-13 | 2.2 | 12.6 |
| NANAIMO A | 2014-02-14 | 0.9 | 12.6 |
sunshine hours 
My climate station has set 2 record lows for March 1,2: -34.5,-31 C
February ended up being the second coldest I have recorded in 23 years (-12.9C mean). 1994 was -13.4C
I used to live in the Puntzi area. The average temperatures in the winter are mild compared to northern standards, but when it It gets cold, it can be as cold as anyone. Whitehorse, Yellowknife, and Fort Nelson have never been as cold as Puntzi Mountain has, and Puntzi has a shorter period of record than those other places. Puntzi has been the Province’s cold spot 3 of the past 8 years, which is more than anyone else.Fort Nelson is 2nd by managing the yearly cold spot two times. Since records began in 1968, Puntzi has gotten down to -63 F (-52.8C), but people who were there in 1950 say that their backyard thermometer recorded -70F. This is likely colder than an official temperature would have been, but given the fact that 1950 was colder than 1968, it is safe to say that it can get down to about -55C in Puntzi.
Anyway, the cold snap early last month hit the Cariboo-Chilcotin harder than the rest of the country.. Notice that most of the places on the list are in the Cariboo or Central Interior area (Puntzi, Burns Lake, Buffalo Lake, Clinton, and Blue River). Puntzi was the coldest spot in Canada 2 of the 3 coldest days on the list.
Oh, and in typical Environment Canada fashion, they have errors. For example, Nelson did not hit -40. Gotta love EC. Notice that they stopped performing quality control checks on most weather stations in 2007.
The number of simple errors I find in the data makes me sad.
BTW, you missed a few spots. Spokin Lake, near Williams Lake, recorded a -36.5 and a -36.0 on the 9th and 8th. Additionally, 100 Mile House recorded a -37.
I’ll check. I only picked stations with Daily data and an actual MIN MAX temp. Maybe some of these stations only have Hourly data.
There are two 100 Mile:
100 MILE HOUSE 6NE
100 MILE HOUSE ABEL LAKE
Even to today the first one only has data until the 22nd and the 2nd one only has data to the 26th.
The way I wrote my code is to ignore incomplete months. I guess I better change that.
Cool stuff, anyway. How are you extracting all this data? I only know how to download the monthly summaries and such. I ignore temperature data with more than 3 missing days.
EC Web Service. I asked for help and they sent these instructions. I wrote my own code to automate:
We have exposed the various functions used to generate these HTML pages in full in a web service available at
http://arccf10.tor.ec.gc.ca/climate/functions/climatedata.cfc?wsdl. This link is the WSDL file that defines the various services available.
The individual methods can be called using SOAP methods, through software typically, or can be called using a REST method (in a browser for instance.)
A couple of examples would be http://arccf10.tor.ec.gc.ca/climate/functions/climatedata.cfc?method=findByName&txtName=VANCOUVER&startDate=2007-01-01&endDate=2007-01-31 (returns all stations with data available between January 1st and January 31st, 2007 with a name beginning with the word VANCOUVER)
and http://arccf10.tor.ec.gc.ca/climate/functions/climatedata.cfc?method=getDlyClimateDataQry&stnID=888&firstDate=2007-01-01&lastDate=2007-01-31 (returns daily data for the station named VANCOUVER HARBOUR CS using the station id found with the prior request.)
The advantage to this is that these are full blown web services and they allow a little higher a level of customization. The disadvantages are that this is no documentation on using this method.
One other interesting note about Puntzi is that the weather station has been glitching since mid December by recording a couple mm of precipitation almost every day even when it was -40 and clear as a bell. The temperatures are not glitching, however.