The flood outlook for the spring snow melt looks better now than it did a month ago for the Kamloops area.
Data from the BC River Forecast Centre indicates that the risk of flooding has slightly dropped as of April 1, compared to March 1.
It says the snowpack at higher elevations in the South Thompson is 23 per cent above normal, compared to 27 per cent above normal a month ago. And the North Thompson snowpack is 17 per cent above normal, compared to 23 per cent last month.
The North and South Thompson snowpac levels, however, are still at their highest levels in 21 years, and the second-highest levels for both regions in the past 45 years.
“Is it still a risk? My answer for the Thompson Valley is yes. And the reason being that in the last 20 years or so, this is the highest that both the North and South Thompson have been, simultaneously. And the last time that it was higher was in 1999,” BC River Forecast Centre hydrologist Jonathan Boyd tells NL News.
The highest readings in the Kamloops area for snowpack levels are at Blue River (39 per cent above normal), Cook Creek (36 per cent above), Pavilion (36 per cent above) and Lac Le Jeune (35 per cent above).
Boyd also says there could be an elevated risk of flooding in the Cache Creek area; he says the snowpack reading at the Deadman River was 20 per cent above normal on March 1 but that data wasn’t gathered in time for the update on April 1.
Also, the Nicola snowpack in the Merritt area is eight per cent below normal.
The forecast says most areas of B.C. saw as much as 25 per cent less precipitation than normal in Marc, and some areas saw as high as 70 per cent less rain and snow.
“Lucky would be a good way to describe the March weather conditions, for the North Thompson, South Thompson and pretty well the whole southern Interior,” Boyd says.
The forecast does warn that most of southern B.C. is seeing higher-than-normal snowpack levels, and a handful of areas in central B.C. have an “extremely high snowpack” right now, including areas near Quesnel and west of Prince George.
