The North Shore - along with the rest of the South Coast - has enjoyed some unseasonably warm temperatures this week, with Wednesday's West Vancouver high of 9.9 degrees Celsius narrowly missing the 20-year record of 10.2 degrees set in 2005.
Although the North Shore didn't set a record, several areas around the Lower Mainland did, including official weather station at Vancouver International Airport, which registered a high temperature of 11.6 degrees on Wednesday.
The recent warm, wet weather that started on Christmas Eve marked a "major pattern shift" from the unusually dry cold weather that marked the earlier part of December, said meteorologist David Jones with Environment Canada.
Up until Dec. 23, the West Vancouver weather station had recorded less than 25 millimetres of rain, in a month that usually sees closer to 175 mm.
"The first three weeks were exceptionally dry," said Jones. If the trend had continued, "we would have set a record," he said.
Instead, the ridges of high pressure that had been pushing winter storms further north collapsed, allowing warmer, wetter storm systems from the Pacific to drench the South Coast over the past week.
All that's left some people scratching their heads and wondering what happened to the predictions of an extremely cold and possibly snowy La Nina winter.
Jones said one reason those predictions have failed to materialize is they were "nonsense" to begin with. "The predictions of it being really, really cold were nonsense," he said.
La Nina can influence climate, as measured in 90-day averages and totals, he said - but don't expect to see it showing up in the daily weather forecast.
Jones added winter only officially just started. "It's silly even to talk about it," he said.
At Grouse Mountain, spokeswoman Sarah Lusk said recent weather patterns have brought a mix of snow and rain. She said mountain crews are expecting more snow to fall into the weekend.
Down at sea level, Jones said the same warm wet weather pattern expected to continue into next week.
