The City of Merritt is keeping a very close eye on the forecast for the rest of the week as the third in a series of increasingly powerful storms is set to hit the province.

“A lot of it will simply depend on how much water hits us,” Merritt Emergency Information Officer, Greg Lowis, told NL News.

“If we have the same amount that we had two weeks ago, there simply isn’t work that can be done to prevent that amount of water doing damage. But if we have say the amount of water that we had [this weekend] or even less, then at this point we are confident that we can handle that amount of water coming through.”

This morning, Lowis said the Coldwater River did not overflow its banks on Sunday night even though the river reached a peak of 177 cubic metres a second. It was well below the 300 to 600 cubic metres a second seen two weeks ago, on Nov. 15, when the entire City of Merritt was forced to evacuate.

“We’re in very regular contact with people like the BC River Forecast Centre and Environment Canada. We are monitoring the gauges on the river upstream. We’re in consultation with the Coldwater Indian Band who are up the stream,” he added.

“We are working as close as we can with as people as we can to make sure we have a very good idea of what kind of water levels we can expect.”

Speaking during the province’s briefing on flooding, Environment Canada Meteorologist Armel Castellan, said the new system – which has subtropical origins near the Philippines – will deliver “a relatively strong punch” with parts of southwestern B.C. bracing for between 50 and 100 mm of rain.

“It’s not just a rain event. It’s not just a snow melting event. It’s also a successive storm event,” he said, noting the tropical nature of the system will raise the freezing level to over 2,500 metres, leading to melting snow.

“So even if the third storm is not as bad as it could have been in the modeling leading up to today, it will be problematic because they are coming so close back to back with the runoff and the saturated soil.”

Speaking to NL News on Monday morning, Lowis says there is still more work being done to repair dikes and to reinforce the banks along the Coldwater River in Merritt to protect critical infrastructure like the wastewater treatment plant.

“I don’t have an exact number on your [on how much water we can expect this week,]” Lowis said. “I know that there’s a somewhat variety in the models right now as to how much water they think is going to come over the Coquihalla Summit and rain in the Coldwater basin.”

“At the moment, we’re just seeing what works we can do and obviously we’ll keep people very informed if there are further steps required.”

As of publishing, a flood warning was still in place for the Coldwater River at Merritt and the Nicola River at Spences Bridge. Warnings were also in place for the Coquihalla River above Alexander Creek and the Tulameen River at Princeton.