The snowpack in the snow basins around the Prince George area is a bit below normal to start 2025.
According to the BC River Forecast Centre, the Upper Fraser East basin was around 82 per cent on January 1st, while the Upper Fraser West is around 81 per cent.
“It’s not necessarily just what’s going on in Prince George itself, but also what’s going on in the mountains,” explained BC River Forecast Centre Hydrologist Jonathan Boyd.
“It is a bit of a range, Barkerville is at 107 per cent of normal, Hedrick Lake is at 102 per cent of normal, but there were a couple of the automated stations like Yellowhead, which is up near the border with Alberta, at 67 per cent of normal and Dome Mountain at 64 per cent of normal.”
Boyd added there’s a minor storm system moving into the Central and North Coast right now, with potential for a bigger system next week, which could increase the snowpack.
“It’s where percentage points can increase, say 80 per cent can become 90 per cent just in one storm, in one day, so the changes can happen really rapidly,” he explained.
In terms of what the BC River Forecast Centre is expecting for the rest of the winter, Boyd said we are in a La Nina year, which is typically a little bit cooler and brings more precipitation.
“Often La Nina years for the Upper Fraser, in years where we do have a little bit higher snow, and potential threat for flood,” he said.
“So having the snowpack around that 80 per cent level for January 1, it’s actually borderline ideal at this moment, because it’s still not enough to really cause flood concerns at this point, but certainly higher than last year when the snowpack was well below normal and we knew that a significant drought was on the horizon as early as the bulletin on January 1 last year.”
With recent precipitation in the fall and into the winter, Boyd says this has helped alleviate drought conditions in the area as well.
“I would say from the Robson Valley side of things, certainly the drought situation has gotten a lot better, really even leading into the winter time, the drought levels were essentially below drought concern levels,” he explained.
“It’s not quite the same story with the Upper Fraser West, so the Vanderhoof, Burns Lake, particularly the Nechako reservoir as well, that’s an area that, although there was some pretty good rain storms that arrived for the Central Coast and spilled over a little bit in September and early October, didn’t get those areas out of drought conditions as we went into winter.”
Boyd noted they typically don’t monitor drought conditions during the winter, as the water demand is reduced considerably during the winter.
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