PRINCE GEORGE
Saturday, November 7, 2026, Written by: Shane Chevalier
Fall is definitely here and what a windstorm it brought in Friday evening!
Ok, not to sound doomist because, well, windstorms are quite common in November, but Friday nights wind took the cake and battered the whole region for hours with wind gusts reaching up to 114 km/h, that was at the peak of the storm, between 8 pm and 11 pm.
PJXM is located in the Seymour neighbourhood of Prince George, just off 15th Ave and Burden Street. The power went off twice, once at 8:24 pm with it coming back just before 9 pm, and the second outage not long after that one, at around 9:30 pm. The second outage lasted roughly 10 minutes before BC Hydro crews had it back on once again. At that time, over 6,000 people in the central area had no power. Not going to lie, working and living nearby on 15th Ave at the intersection of Carney Street is not an ideal treat. Once the power went out the traffic lights also went and I was waiting to hear a crash, twice.. thankfully that did not happen, but a lot of upset honking did.
At the time of writing this tidbit of information, over 14,000 PG area residents remain without power. BC Hydro stated on social channels that many customers would be without power until morning or maybe even longer depending on damage. As for damage, well, that is yet to be seen and I am quite certain there will be a lot to clean up today.
The strongest wind gust Friday evening also broke a 64 year-old wind record for Prince George. Back in 1962, wind gusts reached 77 km/h that day. The last major windstorm Prince George had was back on January 30, 2024. On that day, chinook wind gusts reached 80 km/h and knocked out power to thousands of customers across the region for several days.
Expect some potent weather for the next week as we head deeper into Fall territory. Rain and snow are in the upcoming forecast with cooler temperatures moving in for the work week.
As for today and Sunday… expect more wind as another storm system moves across BC. Wind gusts could reach up to 85 km/h and could hamper power restoration.
And… just to throw this out there to despise the local mainstream media… Prince George is NOT going to be very warm for the last half of the month as we could be dealing with what usually happens in late December/January, a polar vortex weakening event. While the event may not bring brutal cold to our area, the east coast might need to wear their winter coats, gloves and toques.. but way over here to the west, expect snow and a lot of it. This will no doubt change by November 27, 2026. Don’t worry though, El Nino is still on track to disrupt our winter in mid to late December.
