Record Snowpacks

The snow is piling up.

Thanks to a succession of storms starting back in October, snowpacks that are well above normal have accumulated in much of the province.

Record high values for the amount of snow in the mountains at the start of the year have been set in a number of locations on Vancouver Island, the south coast, and in the Skeena and Nechako basins.

BC Environment Minister Barry Penner says that even though some regions of the province now have the high snowpack accumulations, water conservation should still take place year-round.

Here in the Okanagan, the Basin Snow Water Index is at 110 percent of normal, and that number rises to 143 percent of normal in the Peace River basin, 147 percent in the Similkameen, 153 percent in the Skeena, 174 percent in the Nechako, and all the way up to 177 percent of normal on Vancouver Island.

This is a dramatic change to the way things were at the end of autumn, where very dry and record or near-record drought conditions existed throughout BC. This was especially true in the Peace River basin, the upper and mid Fraser, and the Nechako and Thompson-Nicola areas.

The difference came in November and December, when total precipitation was above normal almost everywhere.

In some regions it was well above normal, to the point where periods of flooding hit the south coast and Vancouver Island. The storm systems that brought the flooding in the lower mainland were large enough to reach into the Kootenays and up to northern BC, resulting in the snowpacks in all areas being as high as they are.