Puntzi Mountain and nearby Puntzi Lake is a small community about 3 hours east of Bella Coola on the Chilcotin Highway 20. It's known for it's history related to Puntzi Mountain having a radar station which was part of the Pinetree line of early warning stations established during the cold war era in the early 1950's and has long since been demobilized. Puntzi Mountain is also the site of an Environment Canada weather station, and in the winter time a really cold site. Until today I thought the weather station was actually on Puntzi Mountain, which is more of high hill than a Bella Coola style mountain, which would help explain why it gets so darn cold there. But when I looked into the coordinates for the weather station it's actually right beside the runway, (a paved 6100' runway - 2nd longest in BC when it was built) which makes it even more impressive in regards to the extreme cold it records. Often when you check the BC weather summary, when it's cold, Puntzi is colder than even places in the north and I think it must rank as one of the consistenltly coldest places in Canada.
This morning's low of -39 C, is no joke and helps you understand where we get some of that cold air that can spill into the Bella Coola Valley during Arctic outflows. Grizzly
So many!
16 hours ago
I remember living through lows below -60. It sure can be cold. It isn't that bad now, though. Last winter only dipped into the -40s, for example.
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