The City of Kelowna is busy with flood management and preparation, but it appears Mother Nature has her own plan and could make things more challenging this week. 

BC Wildfire fighters have been hard at work making thousands of sandbags each day and installing bladder dams in high risk areas.

“We’ve been putting up tiger dams to keep water out of certain areas and we are taking the initiative to put up structures before water or damage happens,” said Stefan Nicholishen with BC Wildfire based in Kamloops.

Wildfire fighters have been busy all over West Kelowna and Kelowna in the very areas they spent numerous weeks in after last year's flood season.

A focus this year has been sandbagging along all the creeks and rivers.

“We are a lot better at sandbagging this year than we were last year,” said Nicholishen. “We are putting up thousands a day, at least.”

It was one year ago this week that residents in Kelowna first started experiencing flooding in their homes.

The BC River Forecast Centre says snowpack levels in the Okanagan and Similkameen are at 152 per cent of normal as of April 9.

Above-seasonal temperatures all week bring a welcome change to the cool spring weather, but it will end with rain on Saturday.

“We are looking at a pretty nice week coming up here with lots of sunshine right through the week,” said Trevor Smith, meteorologist with Environment Canada.

“The ridge of high pressure that is going to bring us all this nice weather is going to move off and we might even see some showers for Saturday.”

The Southern Interior has been faced with below-seasonal temperatures in 2018.

“It was a cool spring so the last two months we’ve been three degrees below average temperatures and that is pretty significant,” said Smith.

Residents are reminded to prepare their homes for spring runoff and can learn more about how to do so here. For information on where to pick up sandbags, click here.