Many mountains on Vancouver Island north of Nanaimo are still covered in snow, a sure sign that it’s been a cold spring.
“Campbell River received its fourth coolest spring on record and much of Vancouver island was an average of a degree and a half to two degrees cooler that what it would be usually,” said Environment Canada Meteorologist Derek Lee.
“And it was definitely wet in the last three months across the area receiving somewhere between 200 and 300 mm of precipitation which translates to about 130 per cent wetter than average.”
In the mountains that translates to a snow pack that is now about 150 per cent of normal for this time of year.
Experts say even if it suddenly warms up, we’re not likely to see flooding on the Island, but the longer the snow hangs on the better.
“Prolonging that period where the snow melt continues to have an influence on the stream flows is a good thing so that can help keep temperatures low in the river later into the summer and can also keep the flows, the base flow period a little bit later into the summer. Those tend to be positives particularly from the fish habitat side of things,” said Dave Campbell of the BC River Forecast Centre.
And your wait for warmer weather could last into August. A persistent La Nina weather pattern is not weakening.
“July will see cooler affects still lingering and it might not really be until August that we get into that normal seasonal trend,” added Lee.
Dean Stoltz
