Central Okanagan residents are being advised to get ready for spring run-off, as temperatures are expected to jump significantly this coming weekend.
“Be prepared,” said Sandra Follack, deputy fire chief and emergency program coordinator in Kelowna. “It’s a good thing to keep an eye on the weather.”
The advice is especially important for people living in low-lying areas or by waterways.
“If they’re in an area where they normally would flood in a normal year, we do have sandbags that they can ask for at Kelowna fire halls or yards,” Follack told Global News.
The weekend is expected to see temperatures that could rise 10 degrees above normal, with Kelowna expecting a high of 27 C on Saturday.
“We haven’t really had any snowmelts of significance, especially at the higher elevations, until likely this upcoming weekend, when we get some warm temperatures,” said Jonathan Boyd, a hydrologist with the River Forecast Centre.
“The snowpack melting, it will get the flows rising — essentially for the first time this season, because, again, it hasn’t melted at this point in time.”
The last bulletin on the snowpack was issued by the River Forecast Centre was April 1, and revealed the Okanagan was higher than most parts of B.C.
“Throughout the province, the snowpack was a little bit below normal for April 1, but the Okanagan was actually above normal at 113 per cent,” Boyd said.
Boyd said the above-normal snowpack translates into a higher potential risk for snowmelt-related flooding.
He added that the big unknown is the potential for rain, which would increase the chance of flooding.
“The question mark comes down to the middle of next week. There are some weather models that are showing potential for some heavy rain, and others that are showing moderate in temperature and staying fairly dry,” Boyd said.
“So the bigger risk, I think, is what then might happen after this heat on the weekend.”
But the warm-up is expected to be short-lived, which could mitigate any localized flooding, at least for now.
“So that actually may be a benefit in the sense that you just have a short burst of heat and it might melt some of the snow and get it melting, but going back to potentially cooler temperatures can slow that down,” Boyd said.
According to the Regional District of the Central Okanagan, the mid-to-upper-elevation snowmelt will start speeding up between now and late June.
That means water levels will be rising for weeks to come.
“I think there will be maybe two months of concern for the Okanagan, with this combination of slightly above normal snowpack and then just the potential for rain on top of the melting snow,” Boyd said.
For more information on flood preparedness, visit the Central Okanagan Emergency Program website.