Flood watch to stretch into July
“Well, maybe there won’t be as many fires,” might be the best you can say about the last snowpack report of the 2022 season.
Colder-than-normal spring conditions have delayed melting by two to four weeks and left a huge volume of snow in B.C. mountains, the BC River Forecast Centre says.
This increases the risk of flooding into late July, especially if heavy rainfall occurs.
“Flood risk remains high due to the delayed melt of the mountain snowpack,” the report’s executive summary says.
“Snowpack throughout the province is well above normal.”
Snow measurements currently average 198 per cent of normal across the province, but the centre says snowpack is only one factor related to freshet flooding.
“Weather conditions through June and July will determine the timing, magnitude and rate of snowmelt and heavy rainfall events can exacerbate the situation,” the summary says.
In fact, with unsettled conditions predicted into the second half of July, the centre says the most significant downstream risk over the short term is for heavy rain to fall on a melting snowpack.
The June 15 snow basin index shows the Okanagan basin at 243 per cent of normal, the Boundary basin at 181 per cent and the Similkameen at 210 per cent. The North and South Thompson basins sit at 232 and 186 per cent of normal.
The report points out June is typically the Interior’s wettest month but in a nod to more recent history touches on the heat dome that arrived in late June 2021.
“There is no sign of an extended heat event in the near future,” it adds
The warmest temperatures of the year so far happened the first few days of June, melting snow at medium to high elevations.
Closer to home, a cold low-pressure system that hit the Southern Interior in midJanuary managed to add 60 to 80 millimetres of snow to high elevation stations in the Okanagan.
Central Okanagan Emergency Operations said a spring storm is expected to bring more rain to the area today.