Victoria on the sunny side of a record

February in Victoria has never been quite like this.

It has become, unofficially, the sunniest darned February ever.

Weather specialist Anne McCarthy said Wednesday's brilliant, cloud-free skies undoubtedly put us over the top, surpassing the previous high of 151.5 sunny hours in February 1996.

The normal level of sunshine for the month is 89.4 hours.

"We measure sunshine once at the end of the day," McCarthy explained from Environment Canada's Victoria weather office Wednesday afternoon. "But as of Tuesday evening after sundown we had had 149.2 hours of bright sunshine."