In fact, Greater Victoria is so parched it has just set a record for the driest period in its recorded weather history, said Steven Murray, a local weather analyst who chronicles weather patterns at Gonzales Observatory in Victoria. The federal Gonzales station opened in 1914, but data for the area goes back to 1898, when weather patterns were collected at a former station on Cook Street. It is considered one of the longest-running set of measurements on the Pacific coast of North America.