Snowpack looking good for February

The Okanagan snowpack – crucial to next summer’s water supply – is in good shape this week at 111 per cent of normal.

The official snow bulletin for Feb. 1 is not scheduled to be released by the B.C. River Forecast Centre until Feb. 8 but in a preliminary report posted Tuesday, it says: “The regions with the highest average snowpack above the long-term median are the Okanagan (111 per cent) and Boundary (142 per cent).”

That’s significant since by Feb. 1, on average, approximately two-thirds of the total seasonal snowpack has accumulated in a typical year.

The preliminary report warns that the weekly listing of Automated Snow Weather Stations (ASWS) is not official. However, the individual readings do reflect the snowpack for irrigation districts which depend on that particular station.

The Okanagan readings were: Trout Creek West 118 per cent; Mission Creek 103 per cent; Greyback Reservoir 125 per cent; Silver Star Mountain 113 per cent; Brenda Mine 118 per cent and Oyama Lake 88 per cent. The Okanagan average is 111 per cent. Mission Creek supplies one-third of the water flowing into Okanagan Lake.

In the Similkameen, Blackwall Creek was at 65 per cent; and in the Boundary region, Grano Creek was at 142 per cent.

Almost all areas of the province were below normal for Feb. 1; the provincial average for the ASWS sites was 81 per cent (dropping from 87 per cent on Jan. 1) and the Fraser River basin was 76 per cent of median (lowering from 82 per cent on Jan. 1). The North Thompson (63 per cent), Upper Columbia (63 per cent) and Vancouver Island (64 per cent) had the lowest snowpack at their stations.

Even there, the forecast is optimistic,. “A long-duration snowfall event is currently happening for north and central B.C., and expected to continue into Friday,” says the preliminary report.

“Additional precipitation is expected for coastal B.C. beginning Friday and into the weekend. Precipitation is forecast to continue next week. There will likely be a noticeable rebound in areas that have well-below-normal snow pack.”

Temperatures across British Columbia were warmer than normal for January, it notes. “Most regions ranged from +1.0 C to +4.0 C above normal for the month. The northerly sections of the province, including Fort St. John, Fort Nelson and Dease Lake measured +4.0 C to +7.0 C above normal temperatures. Generally, February was drier-than-normal throughout the province.”