The flood risk in Kamloops is expected to last well into July, according to the BC River Forecast Centre.
Section head Dave Campbell says that’s because a much larger than normal snowpack is taking longer to melt, because of cooler weather throughout the spring.
But he says the good news to that is the drawn-out melt has helped prevent flooding in Kamloops from snow melting too quickly.
“Despite it being quite wet over the four-to-six weeks, that could’ve been much more disastrous than it has been. I think this kind of cooler weather that we generally have through the spring has kind of helped melt the snow off,” Campbell says.
“We’ve melted a lot of that lower, mid-elevation snow quite early. And so in terms of that, it has been a long and drawn-out melt. In terms of (flood) risk, that’s kind of ideal. It would’ve been nice if it was a little bit drier, but in terms of flood risk it seems like we haven’t achieved those scenarios that were certainly possible this year.”
Campbell says about 30 per cent of the snowpack still needs to melt.
“Maybe it’s a week or so (behind) compared to usual. Certainly for people starting to look to go out hiking in the mountains and things like that, there’s probably still lots of snow up there in a lot of our provincial parks and hiking areas. It’ll be into July before we’re fully free of snow at those higher elevations.”