Residents of many parts of southern and central British Columbia are being warned of possible flooding, as the province’s spring freshet season picks up steam.
It comes as temperatures rise across the province, triggering faster snow melt, along with the potential for rain in the forecast which could further swell rivers.
The Village of Cache Creek declared a state of local emergency on Monday and has issued an evacuation order for one property, while some Parkers Cove residents of the Okanagan Indian Band have also been ordered to leave.
On Tuesday, the BC River Forecast Centre upgraded the Lower Thompson, including Cache Creek, Deadman River, Criss Creek, Bonaparte River and surrounding areas around Cache Creek and Skeetchestn, to a flood warning, and issued a new flood warning for the Whiteman River.
The Village of Cache Creek has set up a sandbag filling centre at the old recycling area near the community’s post office.
Flood watches have also been implemented for the South Interior including remaining areas in the Lower Thompson, Salmon River and Okanagan, as well as the Boundary and southern Kootenay regions, including Kettle River, Granby River and its surrounding tributaries.
The Middle Fraser region, including plateau areas around Quesnel, Williams Lake, Lhoosk’uz Dene, is also under a flood watch.
High-streamflow advisories remains in effect for the Upper Fraser, including plateau areas around Prince George, and the Similkameen River and its tributaries.
The forecast centre said daily high temperatures have been trending in the upper 20 C range, with an upper low trough forecast for Friday potentially bringing precipitation to the B.C. Interior.
“With ongoing above normal temperatures next week, ongoing rises in rivers are expected across the region, with increasing potential for flood hazard in other rivers over the coming days, the forecast centre warned in its bulletins.
“The potential for heavier precipitation on Friday and Saturday could lead to a period of significant flood hazard through the region late this week.”
Jonathan Boyd with the River Forecast Centre said the province has seen a cool March and April, which delayed snowmelt in many lower-elevation areas. Warmer weather over the last weekend has begun to speed that process up, he said.
“The potential of course is it could be a lot worse if we get heavy rain, but its difficult to forecast any type of large rain for the South Interior until just two or three days beforehand,” he told Global News Morning BC.
“Where the rain is unpredictable is that when we’re in this state where the snow is melting rapidly, if we were to have a large rainfall event … that just triggers more snowmelt and just doubles or triples the amount of input into the river systems.”
Boyd said while the situation could create flooding hazards in the coming days, it also has the potential to lower flood risk later in the season.
Some of the province’s worst flooding has come in years where snowmelt was delayed weeks later into the season, with sudden and rapid melt late in May swelling rivers.
In the meantime, he urged people in the province’s Interior to be prepared and to have their valuables and an emergency kit ready to go in case they do face an evacuation order.
“Just being prepared,” he said.
“Probably the greatest risk at this moment in time is the potential for heavy rain, and things can change quite rapidly, and it’s not necessarily that they’ll have one or two weeks of heads-up, it may just be up to one day or less.”
View up-to-date information on flood watches and warnings here.
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