Latest news with #KristiGordon
Global News
05-06-2025
- Climate
- Global News
First blast of summer heat headed for southern B.C.
Southern British Columbia is bracing for its first serious bout of hot weather of the season. Environment Canada has issued special weather statements for most of southern B.C., stretching from southern and eastern Vancouver Island through to Revelstoke, the Okanagan Valley and Grand Forks. 'A ridge of high pressure is bringing high temperatures to the region. Daytime highs are expected to be in the high 20s to low 30s with overnight lows in the low- to mid-teens,' on the South Coast, the weather and climate agency warned. 4:16 Children's summer safety The high temperatures are forecast to persist into next week, with the latest forecasts showing the heat peaking on Sunday and Monday. Story continues below advertisement 'This will be the first prolonged heat event of the year,' Global BC senior meteorologist Kristi Gordon said. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy Temperatures will be five to 10 degrees above average across the South Coast for six days, through Tuesday. On Saturday, Sunday and Monday, many areas away from the water in Metro Vancouver and through the Fraser Valley will be approaching 30 C.' Gordon said the Southern Interior will also see hot weather through next Wednesday, with daytime highs int eh 29 C to 35 C range. That's about seven to 12 degrees above the seasonal average. While the temperatures won't come close to the deadly peaks British Columbia has seen in serious heat events like the 2021 Heat Dome, Environment Canada said they can still be dangerous. 'Early season heat can be significant due to the lack of acclimatization to elevated temperatures,' the agency warned. 'Keep your house cool. Block the sun by closing curtains or blinds. Watch for the effects of heat illness: heavy sweating, rash, cramps, fainting, high body temperature and the worsening of some health conditions.' Gordon said the coming hot weather isn't expected to be extremely dangerous, but it is a good time to begin thinking about ways to prepare for more extreme heat that's expected later in the summer. Story continues below advertisement You can find out more about heat-related illnesses and risks to vulnerable groups here.
The Province
21-05-2025
- Climate
- The Province
Mark Madryga vs. Kristi Gordon: How Global B.C.'s top two meteorologists disagree on climate change
Pete McMartin: Mark Madryga and Kristi Gordon may share weather forecasting duties on Global News but they don't share the same views on climate change Global News's Mark Madryga and Kristi Gordon are two of the most high-profile meteorologists in B.C. Photo by PNG Files 'You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.' — from Subterranean Homesick Blues, by Bob Dylan. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. 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Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Well, maybe you do. Take, for example, Mark Madryga and Kristi Gordon. The duo share the duties of weather forecasting on BCTV's Global News, where they're — by dint of BCTV's dominant audience share — the most high-profile meteorologists in the province. What Madryga and Gordon don't share, however, are views on climate change. Madryga does the morning and noon-hour weather reports: Gordon does the evening telecasts. Madryga has been with BCTV since 1994, and seemed predestined for the job. He began recording weather reports at home on his cassette player when he was nine, and there is a YouTube video of him doing a forecast for Kamloops, where he grew up, when he was 13. He graduated from the University of B.C. with a bachelor of science in physical geography and meteorology in 1986, and then joined Environment Canada as a forecaster before going to BCTV. Affable and folksy on-air, Madryga has cultivated a large and avid following. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Gordon has been with BCTV since 2006. Like Madryga, she graduated from UBC with a bachelor of science in physical geography and atmospheric science in 2001, and represents, she said, 'a younger generation' of meteorologists. It's a distinction she feels that has affected her views and telecasts. Before joining BCTV, she worked as a meteorologist at CTV, where she began incorporating elements of climate change into her telecasts. She talked about energy conservation, humidex levels and heat warnings — common subjects in telecasts now but were rare then. There was pushback. Some questioned the validity of her science. In a 2022 interview with Global News, she said she was initially mocked by colleagues when she wanted to include climate-change elements in her telecasts, to the point 'where the (news) anchors would literally just walk away from me.' Essential reading for hockey fans who eat, sleep, Canucks, repeat. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Viewers balked, too. 'In terms of pushback from viewers, absolutely I've had pushback. I haven't been threatened, but certainly within Twitter people have been rude to me or told me I'm dumb, that I don't know what I'm talking about or usually something along those lines.' A recent comment from a viewer on her Facebook page was: 'Stop fearmongering.' Nonetheless, Gordon's view about climate change is unequivocal: It is, she believes, an existential threat to mankind, and one she feels compelled to talk about in her telecasts. 'Instead of just saying it was the 13th consecutive month where we've had the hottest temperatures ever, it's important to bring it back to your local area and talk about, 'Well, what does this mean? How do we have to adapt?' We need to be thinking more about how we're going to cool our homes, not just by air-conditioning. We need to be planning for the prospect of flooding. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'It is going to happen. Washouts are going to happen. Mudslides are going to happen. So we need to be thinking about these things, and we can move it in that direction, as opposed to just continuing to basically (talking about daily temperatures) over and over again.' Over time, however, Gordon has tempered talk about climate change in her telecasts. Gone, she said, is the 'alarmist-ish' doomsday talk. 'People just don't need it hammered over their heads. We are now starting to present climate change in a more positive way, by talking about the good things you can do, and about talking about the possibilities and the advancements and the knowledge that we're learning as we go forward.' That audience fatigue — or fear — has had a real impact. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. One U.S. media survey found that in 2023, then the warmest recorded year on the planet, the four major U.S. TV networks scaled back their coverage of climate change by 25 per cent. At the same time, U.S. meteorologists reported increasing pushback from their audiences, including death threats and abusive social-media messaging. Madryga, however, never mentions climate change in his telecasts. He feels it isn't his mandate. 'For clarification,' he wrote in an email, 'you will find no mention in my weather broadcasts to the viewers of 'climate change' — it is always the 'weather' and its impacts that are of primary importance to me. 'My expertise is more forecasting the weather in B.C., and getting the forecast out to the public … It's more those (extreme weather) scenarios I'm concerned about … information that is vital to the public, and I'm a main advocate for that. That's more my agenda, rather than long-term climate change has caused more severe weather. I can't say it has, and it's just more my mandate to look at the weather of the day, or the weather of the week … what's substantial, what's important, what might cause destruction.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. If being part of a new generation of meteorologists informs Gordon's view of climate change, Madryga's length of experience informs his. He has seen a wide range of extreme weather in his career, he said, including examples that have equalled or surpassed recent events that have been ascribed to climate change. So what, he was asked, are his views on climate change? 'It's complicated … I know that the weather has been the reason for droughts, for example, in Western Canada, in B.C., and that has led to the drier forests. You get heat on top of that and that has led to more forests fires. So the weather has been connected to forest fires. But whether that is a long-term climate problem, I would say the jury is still out.' While the public often conflates 'weather' and 'climate' as the same thing, the distinction between the two terms is an important one in meteorology. 'Weather' is short-term phenomena in the atmosphere — sun, rain, temperature and the like on any given day — while 'climate' is the averaged daily weather over an extended period of time at a certain location. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Madryga isn't convinced the long-term horizons of climate are as dire as Gordon believes they are. He is not, he said, an alarmist. 'I don't have that view. I have more of a reasonable view that is … it's an issue, definitely, and especially it bothers me that the oceans are warming and the poles are warming more than other areas. 'So it's not an apocalyptic view that's making me lose sleep at night. And a lot of the chatter we get in the media that … whenever there's a significant weather event that this is going to be the norm and they're going to double and triple in time and we're going to get these severe weather events, and there'll be lives lost and damage will go through the roof and all that … I'm not on that bandwagon by any means.' Two meteorologists, two distinct views on climate change within the same newsroom. Which of them is right, and who's correctly called which way the wind is blowing, is a matter of time we may or may not have. mcmartincharles@ Read More Columnists Vancouver Canucks CFL News Vancouver Canucks
