The BC River Forecast Centre says rivers in the Kamloops area are extremely high for this time of year.

Section head Dave Campbell says that comes as a weather system is expected to drop up to 40 millimetres of rain between now and Friday. That has led to a special weather statement being issued for Environment Canada.

“The coming weekend, obviously people are out and about more with relaxing of travel and looking to enjoy Canada Day. Rivers are extremely high and unusually high for this time of year. Given the prolonged season of this year’s freshet, we do expect riverbanks to be extremely unstable. And there’s lots of debris in the rivers that are posing a hazard to the waterways.”

A flood watch is now in place for the North and South Thompson Rivers, and for the Fraser River between Quesnel and Hope.

“Really the critical period for this is going to be the end of this week and the weekend for those tributary areas, and then looking at the end of the weekend, Sunday and into Monday and Tuesday, for the lower Fraser River,” Campbell says.

A higher-risk flood warning is also in place for the upper Fraser River, as up to 70mm of rain could fall by Friday in the Robson Valley and the Cariboo Mountains.