The snowpack in the Upper Fraser East is 261% of normal for this time of year.
“At this time of year what we like to look at, in proportion to how much snow is left on the ground, and how much has melted so far,” said Dave Campbell, Head of the BC River Forecast Centre.
“We do see those really high kind of percent of normal values and what that has reflected has really been the delay in the snowmelt this year with the cool spring we’ve had.”
Campbell added that the snow has been melting, and around half of the snow since the peak in May has melted.
“We’ve got a little bit of a holding pattern as we expect the temperatures to start to increase, that’s going to take a little bit before that translates into more accelerated snowmelt,” Campbell said.
“We’re kind of in that balance of ‘is there enough snow left to cause big jumps in the river?’ and I think we’re at that stage where we’re not seeing that in the forecast, we’re expecting to see just kind of a modest potential for modest increase for flows of what we’re seeing right now.”
The BC River Forecast Centre issued a High Streamflow Advisory for the Upper Fraser River yesterday. (Thursday)