With warmer temperatures and rain in the forecast, officials are closely monitoring Okanagan Lake levels in Penticton, B.C.
According to Shaun Reimer, Ministry of Forest section head for Public Safety and Protection of Okanagan Lake, some of the concerns right now are with other streams that come into Okanagan Lake and how fast that water is filling up.
“Okanagan Lake currently is 88 centimeters below our full pool target that we try to achieve near the end of June. We still have quite a bit of room left in the lake in terms of all the water that’s coming in through the tributaries,” said Reimer.
“With Okanagan Lake, we’re more concerned with the actual volume that’s going to be coming in for the season. Right now we’re good, but it’s going to really depend on that weather and particularly once we get to June, what kind of rain we see at that point.”
Reimer went on to say that there is still a lot of snow on the hills and the freezing level is high, which is ‘particularly problematic.’
However, officials are prepared for potentially ‘higher than normal’ lake levels due to the ‘deeper than normal’ snowpacks.
“The snowpack generally has been high for the last few months higher than normal. In advance of that, we lowered the lake quite substantially this year, and this is why we have a certain amount of room left even at this point where the water started to come in quite quickly,” said Reimer.
“The freezing level is so high — it’s about 3,000 meters and we don’t have any peaks in the Okanagan. It’s above freezing and everything starts to melt at that point. We are looking that it’ll be cooling off and those freezing levels will be coming down after or during the weekend.”
Although there are currently no issues in the river or lake, officials are prepared to take any necessary steps as that can change very quickly.
“We’re going to be monitoring it very carefully, particularly with all this very fast tributary input that’s coming in,” added Reimer.
“Right now, our inflow forecasts have been somewhat moderate. That’s good, but that can change quickly as we can see with these weather conditions.”
As officials continue to monitor water levels, Reimer went on to remind the public to stay away from streams, rivers, and riverbanks during this time of year.
“They become much more unstable during periods of high flows,” said Reimer. “Keep your pets away because that becomes a big problem as well and always needs to be emphasized.”