Tuesday - Jan. 16, 2024 - A snow storm primer

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Good morning!

On Monday, Black Press, the company that controls dozens of local newspapers across the Fraser Valley and BC announced it was filing for creditor protection. The company says it aims to keep its publications open, and is trying to sell itself to an American company to make that possible.

I got my start at a Black Press-owned newspaper—The Morning Star in Vernon—and returned to work at the company after it traded for the Chilliwack Times. It’s too early to know for certain what any of this means. Some documents here suggest the problem lays in bad debt tied to a purchase of US newspapers in 2006. Mostly, I’m worried for my friends at the company, while sad for the current state of media across this country. The newspaper and media business is a perilous one because it’s not like there are a ton of alternatives to go work for when one company goes down. I’d like to have some reassuring note to end on to send you on to a more optimistic reading experience but I don’t. Sometimes the news is just bad news.

– Tyler

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NEWS

All the snow information you need

A massive amount of snow may be on the way for the Fraser Valley this evening, so we’re deviating from our planned story to again provide a one-stop shop for weather-related information.

Before: 

• You can find your municipality’s forecast here: Langley | Chilliwack | Abbotsford | Hope.

• If you prefer the Weather Network, you can find the forecasts from Chilliwack and Abbotsford here.

• You can also find the most recent weather alerts from Environment Canada here.

• And you can find the most recent weather news and forecasts from Global BC here, and the Weather Network here.

On Monday, Weather Network forecaster Tyler Hamilton provided two possible snowfall outlooks for the next day or so. Hamilton’s “boom” forecaset would see up to a foot of snow fall in the Fraser Valley. His “bust” forecast isn’t much better. While much less snow would fall in Vancouver, the Fraser Valley could still see up to 20cm of snow during the less-scary scenario. You can check his two maps out here.

During: Hamilton is a good source of ongoing snow analysis, as are Chris Doyle and Ryan Voutilainen. As snow begins to fall, you can check out road conditions here via DriveBC’s highway cameras here. But many Fraser Valley municipalities also operate cameras on local roads—including those in hilly areas. We have collected all those here.

You can also check Google’s traffic map here.

After: When snow starts falling, plows start moving. But in most Fraser Valley municipalities, the plows aren’t usually going to be able to keep up with snow falling over a huge geographic area. When the snow does stop, it might still take a while to see your local roads plowed. If you’re wondering when a plow might get to your local road, you can check out your municipality’s snow-clearing priority map below:

Langley Township | Langley City | Mission | Abbotsford | Chilliwack | Kent | Harrison Hot Springs | Hope

Schools: Don’t bet on schools being opened Wednesday—or learning tonight whether or not you’ll need to stay home with your kid. Most districts announce whether schools will be open by 6:30am of the day in question. The information is usually on the district’s website and social media channels. You can find those here:

• Abbotsford SD: Website | Facebook

• Langley SD: Website | Facebook

• Chilliwack SD: Website | Facebook

• Mission SD: Website | Facebook

• Fraser Cascade SD: Website | Twitter

As for the sidewalks, your municipality may ask you to clear those fronting your home but fail to do so for its own property. We reported on that last year. You can find the story here.

Need to Know

⛷ Manning Park Resort apologized after confusion about weather-related closures on the mountain [Manning Park/Facebook]

🔥 An arsonist lit a backyard shed on fire in Langley City Monday [Langley Advance Times]

🧊 Pipes burst at a Chilliwack elementary school over the weekend, but classes resumed as normal Monday [Fraser Valley Today]

⚡ The province used a record amount of energy during the cold snap [BC Hydro]

We used so many snow-related links above, we can’t add any more lest your email server cut off the bottom of this newsletter. Watch for our normal Need To Know section tomorrow.

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The Agenda

Abbotsford water system weathered 2023 well

Despite an extensive drought last summer, Abbotsford and Mission’s water system handled the severe dry period relatively easily, according to new data.

Although last year’s spring began exceptionally early, a burst of precipitation in April allowed Dickson Lake—the key reservoir for the city—to remain mostly full into June. And though little rain fell during the summer, the supply of water was able to keep up with the demand of users until September, when wet weather returned. That’s despite Abbotsford’s highest level of water consumption since at least 2015.

Abbotsford’s long-term supply of water has been a concern since the mid-2000s. In 2006, the city’s supply reached an all-time low, with high demand and dry summers seeming to herald a new era of water scarcity. Abbotsford considered spending hundreds of milllions of dollars to draw water from Stave Lake. But after voters rejected that plan, the city focused on conservation efforts—with tremendous effect.

With the city’s population still growing, Abbotsford has recently restarted plans to develop a new water source. After an initial plan to build a large collector well near the Fraser River failed to garner financial support from senior levels of government, the city is now looking to build a series of smaller wells to bolster its water supply. The cost of that project is still substantial—in the tens of millions of dollars—but remains much less than the $300 million Stave project.

Correction

In the introduction yesterday, the name of Active Pass—the short stretch of water separating Galiano and Mayne Islands and a busy route for BC ferries—was mistakenly attributed to the oft-used nature of the narrow corridor. As several knowledgable readers pointed out, the strait was actually named for the USCS Active, a US Navy survey ship that navigated the route.

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