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Above-average moisture in March means Greater Vernon Water (GVW) sources have rebounded slightly, but not enough to avoid a stage one water advisory.
At its Wednesday meeting, the Greater Vernon Advisory Committee was told the snowpack for the Duteau source is at 78 per cent of normal, and the Kal Lake source is 82 per cent of normal.
RDNO general manager of utilities, Zee Marcolin, said the moisture equivalents and water levels are still below average. The rain in March has helped, but both GVW reservoirs remain low.
“With the snow pack, it's good that it's better, but based on an analysis that we've done it really depends – the reservoir filling really does depend on the rain,” said Marcolin.
“We looked at our years that we've gone into restrictions for when the reservoir wasn't filling, it actually was directly linked to the rain. So we had above-average years with snow, and we have not filled our reservoirs.”
She also explained that the freshet (spring melt of snowpack) hasn’t begun yet, so it’s not clear exactly what water levels will be going into summer.
Environment Canada meteorologist, Derek Lee, says the forecast shows a good chance for precipitation over the next week and a half.
Moving into the middle and end of April, the Vernon area could be seeing drier-than-normal conditions. As for May, Lee says their's no input into precipitation yet, but temperatures are expected to be warmer than average.
"In May and June and July, the precipitation usually picks up, and that's usually our wettest time of the year," said Lee.
"Generally, the precipitation comes in the form of thunderstorms. They're more sporadic, but they can definitely cause a lot more downpours, which is good, but the downside of that is that they're unpredictable."
The stage one water restriction mainly impacts RDNO operations.
The district will once again be working with large agricultural users to use stored water more efficiently.
