File Photo (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By James Peters

Flood Forecast

River Forecast Centre sees no elevated flood risk from latest snowpack numbers

May 8, 2019 | 12:19 PM

KAMLOOPS — The BC River Forecast Centre says the province’s snowpack is coming down slow and steady this spring, defusing concerns about high streamflows and floods.

According to the May 1 Snow Survey and Water Supply Bulletin, province-wide snowpack averages 79 per cent of normal.

Around Kamloops, the North Thompson basin registers 91 per cent of normal snowpack, while the South Thompson was at 82 per cent. In the Cariboo, the Middle Fraser comes in at 87 per cent of normal.

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“I think the levels we’re at right now is sort of almost in that sweet spot of not so low that there are huge concerns over the low flow, but they’re not high enough where we’re really concerned about that increased flood risk,” said Dave Campbell from the B.C. River Forecast Centre.

The report notes the weather pattern cooled for much of April, leading to a slowdown of snow melt.

“Yeah, I think that’s really staggered the melt. We got off to a quick start in the later part of March and we saw river levels that were actually quite high for that time of year,” noted Campbell. “Then they’ve really just levelled off. We haven’t seen a lot of movement on the rivers with the cooler weather.”

Oddly, the report notes the lower elevation melt is about two to three weeks ahead of schedule, while the higher elevation snow melt is one to two weeks behind normal. The Forecast Centre says that means there is no elevated flood risk coming from the snowpack, but that can change depending on spring weather events.

As for other parts of the region, this is good news for places like Cache Creek, which has been hammered with severe flooding in three of the last four years.

“The snow that’s kind of melted out. We’ve even seen in response to the warmer weather the last few days the Bonaparte really hasn’t increased much,” said Campbell. “That’s suggesting a lot of that snow is gone. Cache Creek itself can be fairly susceptible to these short-duration, really heavy rainfall events, so we do need to watch out for those. But I think from the snow side of things, that risk is much-diminished there and we’re probably beyond the worst of the season for the Cache Creek area.”