Warmer weather could bring trouble
The return to the extreme cold has since held everything in place, but the homes remain behind sandbags while both city workers and firefighters continue to keep an eye on the river.
Arapid warming is on the way and it could deliver a mixed blessing.
You won’t have to bundle up as much and frozen water pipes won’t pose as big a headache but if you live next to a river or plan on heading into the backcountry, it could be a different story.
The temperature is expected to not just rise but soar and reach 1 C by Tuesday, according to an Environment Canada forecast, well up from the deep freeze that delivered a high of -21 C on Friday.
Coinciding with last week’s sudden jump in temperature, an ice jam formed at a bend in the Nechako River and pushed water over its banks and onto a trio of Morning Place properties. The return to the extreme cold has since held everything in place, but the homes remain behind sandbags while both city workers and firefighters continue to keep an eye on the river.
Prince George Fire Rescue deputy chief Blake King said he is not expecting anything drastic to happen but noted a freeze-thaw pattern last winter kept officials on their toes. It led to a level-one emergency that lasted 19 days.
“It jammed and then it broke loose, then it jammed further up and then it broke loose,” he said. “It kept working its way up the river and it did that all the way up past Miworth. I kind of expect it’s going to be something similar.”
Conditions do not appear ripe for a repeat of the 2007-08 winter when a massive ice jam at the confluence with the Fraser River forced the Nechako to breach its banks and cause significant property damage.
An engineer’s study later determined the jam was a one-in-90-year event and noted it was was preceded by a one-in20-year spring freshet. The study also found that past events like it occurred only when there is a flow of at least 200 cubic metres per second and a temperature of -5 C or colder for 20 days.
Officials from the provincial government could not be reached for comment on the situation Friday.
As for outdoor enthusiasts, Avalanche Canada issued a warning this week that included the Cariboo region southeast of Prince George.
With the warming, the same sort of conditions are expected to take hold further north, James Floyer, an avalanche forecaster at the agency, said Friday and suggested erring on the side of caution.
“If you have a mindset on that limits your terrain selection to simple terrain, sort of low-angle areas that aren’t exposed from above, I think you can probably recreate fairly safely under the conditions,” Floyer said.
“If you’re unsure, then heading out with the aim of playing in the meadows – if you’re a sledder – that’s a great option as is choosing to recreate in a managed area like a ski hill.”
The wild card is the amount of soft snow, according to Floyer, who doubts conditions will be as dangerous as those seen in southeast B.C. where there was a fatality last week.
“I think that through this warming period, it’s really going to pay for people to be quite cautious and back things off, under the understanding that conditions will most likely improve in the longer term,” he said.
On that note, the abnormal warmth won’t last forever. Environment Canada meterologist Doug Jones is expecting that a cooling trend will take hold by the end of next week with temperatures eventually dropping down to more typical winter weather.
The norms for this time of year are highs of -6 C and lows of -14 C, both significantly warmer than what the city has been enduring. There should also be less of the whipsaw from extreme cold to exceptional warmth and back again, Jones said.