Friday - Feb. 21, 2025 - Snowpack once again near record lows

🌧 High 8C

Good morning!

I don’t ordinarily watch hockey games. I don’t even have the streaming services needed to watch the sport even if I wanted to. But for the 4 Nations hockey game last night, I made an exception.

It brings me back to a February 15 years ago, when my friends and I gathered in a friend’s theatre room to watch the gold medal game at the 2010 Olympics. The shouting from my friends who actually understood hockey. The cheering when Sid the Kid scored that final goal in overtime against the Americans. The knowledge that thousands of other Canadians were celebrating along with us.

What a rush to experience that again, right down to the overtime goal. I’m so glad I got to share those feelings with my kids—even if they did go to bed before the game was over.

– Grace

P.S. Thank you all for submitting your questions about the federal government and how it works! We are still accepting questions over the weekend, and you can share them here.

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Traffic & Weather

🌤 Local forecast: Langley | Chilliwack | Abbotsford | Hope 

🚘 Driving today? Check the current traffic situation via Google, and find DriveBC’s latest updates.

🛣 Click here for links to road cameras across the Fraser Valley, including those for the Coquihalla, Highway 7, Hope-Princeton, Fraser Canyon, and Highway 1 in Langley and Abbotsford.

NEWS

Boston Bar’s looming landslide

The discovery of a massive historic landslide on the mountainside directly above Boston Bar has prompted a preliminary warning about its potential impact on the small Fraser Canyon community.

The evidence of the slide comes in the form of new imagery showing instability and previous movement on the steep hillside above Boston Bar. It’s not yet clear how much of a threat the slide poses today to the community below, but the scale and location of the “landslide complex” was enough to prompt the scientists who discovered the slide to warn regional officials that they should be wary of approving new development in the community until they know more.

• Today, Tyler writes about the discovery of a landslide that could alter the future of an entire Fraser Canyon community.

Related

Need to Know

🚚 A semi truck hit two overpasses in Langley Thursday morning; the company is ‘known to police’ [Castanet]

📱 Corrections officers seized cell phones, SD card readers, nicotine patches, and meth at Mountain Institution [Agassiz Harrison Observer]

🚒 Fire crews extinguished a fire at a boarded-up house in Langley Thursday morning [Langley Advance Times]

🧹 The District of Hope is undertaking an archeological study at the new location for the Hope Station House [Hope Standard]

🔎 Langley RCMP are asking for help to find a missing 14-year-old girl [Langley Advance Times]

🗳 Harrison and Sts’ailes are looking at ways to enhance the area’s ‘hot springs experience’ after the destruction of the area’s natural hot springs [Agassiz Harrison Observer]

💔 Chilliwack MLA Á’a:líya Warbus said she lost two brothers, a niece, and a nephew to the toxic drug crisis [Castanet]

👀 Someone stole a golf cart from Aldor Acres in Langley; the cart belonged to Dorothy Anderson, the ‘dor’ in Aldor Acres [Aldor Acres/Instagram]

🛑 LifeLabs employees have started rotating strikes at BC locations [Global]

👉 A Langley Township councillor denied anonymous online comments claiming there was political interference in the selection of Langley’s new fire trucks [Langley Advance Times]

🚲 A support group for people wanting to go car-free in Chilliwack is holding its first meeting on Sunday [Chilliwack Progress]

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The Agenda

Snowpack once again near record lows as warm weather approaches

For the second consecutive year, March is approaching with snowpack levels near record lows.

Despite a chilly February, a lack of precipitation has left mountains across the Fraser River Basin at just 76% of their normal levels as of Feb. 15, according to a new update from the BC River Forecast Centre. (You can view the whole update here.)That compares to 83% of normal at the start of the month. The snowpack is still growing, but only fractionally.

Low river levels could impact salmon stocks. But there is some good news locally. One of the province’s only monitoring systems with above-average levels of snow is located at Dickson Lake, which stores water for Abbotsford and Mission residents. The snowpack there is currently 84% above normal.

The next week could be pivotal for snow levels in British Columbia. The forecast is for significant precipitation—and relatively warm temperatures—across much of southern British Columbia. That could bring snow to very high elevations, but rain to slopes across the province. Temperatures could reach as high as 15C in the Fraser Valley and 8C at Interior mountain resorts like Sun Peaks near Kamloops.

Earthquake monitor coming to Chilliwack River Valley Fire Hall

A three-metre box could soon help alert residents about an impending earthquake.

The Fraser Valley Regional District is installing an earthquake early warning station at the Chilliwack River Valley Fire Hall, which will serve as part of a larger detection system for the region.

The station, managed by Natural Resources Canada (NRC) through a license agreement, would detect P-waves—the first energy to come from an earthquake—and send alerts to the public up to 10 seconds after a major earthquake. The warning would likely arrive before the secondary waves that cause most of an earthquake’s destruction.

The system’s alerts could help halt trains, divert planes, or stop traffic on bridges or tunnels, according to a Feb. 13 staff report.

NRC is currently looking to add early earthquake warnings for many at-risk places across Canada.

Like the rest of southwest BC, the Fraser Valley could be impacted by an off-shore earthquake from faults moving off of Vancouver Island. But the region also has another seismic threat: the Boulder Creek fault zone, which could spawn an earthquake with the potential to impact dikes, the Nooksack River, and homes on the Sumas and Chilliwack floodplains. The Current reported on that fault in 2023.

The early warning station is not expected to disrupt fire operations, and includes a GPS antenna. It’s expected to cost $200 annually to run.

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This week’s FVC Insiders’ Edition

In tomorrow’s members-only newsletter, Tyler talks about how we create and visualize charts, like the ones in our stories about housing prices and border crossings. We’ll also share whether Insiders go out of their way to vote in by-elections, and take a look at the upcoming events for next week.

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🗓 Things to do

Comedy night: Joylyn Secunda performs The Routine, a solo physical comedy, at Langley's Bez Arts Hub on Saturday. The play is like a combination of Death of a Salesman and Mr. Bean. Details and tickets online.

Farmer meeting: The Langley Farmers' Institute hosts a meet and greet on Saturday at Locality Brewing. The meeting is for local farmers to come together and talk about issues in agriculture. Details online.

Rock jam: Darren Harry hosts a Classic Rock Jam at Eagles Hall in Abbotsford on Saturday starting at 7pm. Come to dance or come to perform. Details online.

Have an event to tell us about? Fill out this form to have it highlighted here.

Catch up

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