Dire drought warning for BC amid 'outlier' weather, rapid snowmelt

BC’s mountain snow is nearly gone already, more than a month ahead of schedule. And that, combined with May’s record heat, has prompted a dire drought warning from the agency tasked with monitoring the province’s water supply.

A hot, dry May has left snowpacks across nearly the entire province at just a fraction of normal. Across BC, snow levels are just 29% of normal. The lack of snow can have implications for communities’ drinking water, forest fire frequencies, and BC’s power supply.

The early rapid and early snowmelt, lack of rain, and legacy from last fall’s drought has helped generate a “high risk of province-wide drought” this summer, according to a stunning new bulletin from the BC River Forecast Centre.

You can read the bulletin yourself here.

A month ago, BC’s snowpack was about normal. But by June 1, snow levels were at record low levels. Many other areas saw snow disappeared earlier than ever recorded.

The record-breaking conditions have few precedents and have left scientists warning that predicting the consequences is “particularly challenging.”

The River Forecast Centre’s Snow Survey and Water Supply Bulletin suggests that it’s hard to predict what will happen this year because of the unprecedented weather already seen.

“Although each hydrological year is unique, influenced by its own distinct array of hydroclimatic factors, forecast confidence can generally be strengthened by comparisons to relatively recent analogous years,” the bulletin said. “2023 to date has already been characterized by ‘outlier’- type conditions. Predicting possible scenarios and impacts is particularly challenging because no strong analogues for 2023 exist on record in B.C.“

Although rain in June and July could help alleviate the concerns, the long-term outlook suggests broadly warmer-than-normal conditions over the coming months.

Across BC, snowpacks are 29% of normal. In the Lower Fraser basin—which is responsible for providing drinking water to much of the Lower Mainland—the snowpack was just 35% of normal as of June 1. The situation in the Kootenays and Cariboo plateau is even worse.

The freshet season is already over, and provincial officials say “many rivers are already at or near the lowest flows on record for this time of year.”

The River Forecast Centre pointed to four factors creating the high risk of a drought and river flows: the lingering effects of drought conditions last summer and fall; hot and dry conditions during the winter and spring; the rapid snowmelt; and long-term seasonal forecast of warmer weather.

The bulletin suggests that continued hot and dry weather could harm fish, accelerate the decline of glaciers, and impact the amount of water available for humans and recreation activities.

In many places, the disappearance of the snowpack has occurred nearly a month earlier than normal. That lack of snow will create an increased likelihood of wildfires cause by lightning strikes on mountain ridges.

One of the rare wet areas was in the Peace Region, where almost all the rain fell during one storm. The massive rain event on a parched landscape did little for the fire situation—because the ground was so dry, it was less able to soak up the water and severe fire activity resumed after only a couple of days.