Mission Creek, West Kettle and Kettle Rivers, Granby River, and small watersheds including Redfish Creek and Duhamel Creek in the Kootenay Region are all now under Flood Watch from the BC River Forecast Centre.
The centre is maintaining a High Streamflow Advisory for Similkameen (including the Tulameen River, the mainstem of the Similkameen, and tributaries, Boundary (small tributary creeks), and the Kootenay Region (medium-sized watersheds including the Slocan River, Moyie River, Salmo River, Elk River, Bull River).
The centre is ending the High Streamflow Advisory for the Okanagan Region (small tributary creeks), and the Thompson Region (including the Salmon River near Falkland, Coldwater River, Chase Creek, and other small watersheds).
The snowmelt has been increasing over the past week due to the unseasonably high temperatures. The BC River Forecast Centre say rivers across the South Interior have been flowing high in response to this snow melt. River levels through the Okanagan and Thompson regions appear to have exhausted much of the feeding snowpack and have peaked and are now receding.
In watersheds fed by snow at higher elevations (medium-sized watersheds through the Okanagan and Boundary including Mission Creek, Kettle River, Granby River and , and small watersheds in the Kootenay including Duhamel and Redfish Creeks), river levels remain high.
The weather across most of the province has now changed to a low pressure system, which is expected to bring moderate rainfall through the south-east.
With limited capacity in several rivers in south and south-east BC (including Mission Creek, Kettle and West Kettle Rivers, Granby River, Duhamel Creek, and Redfish Creek), rivers are sensitive to additional water input from this rainfall. This creates a potential for flood conditions to be reached, with the expected peak river levels to occur on early Tuesday for the medium sized rivers (Mission, Kettle, Granby) and late-Monday for smaller systems. The amount that rivers rise will depend on rainfall amounts over the next two days. If rainfall amounts are below what is forecasted, flooding may not occur. Flooding is possible under forecasted rainfall amounts, and flooding is likely to occur if rainfall exceeds the current forecast.
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