Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Skeena and other Northwest rivers past the danger stage?

While the hot weather continues to the east, officials believe that for the most part the danger of the Skeena River and other rivers of Northwest BC wreaking havoc in local communities may have passed.

Most of the snow pack that could possibly have caused troubles appears to have melted over the weekend, with many of the local rivers reaching their peak either on Sunday or Monday. While the rivers are still expected to run high over the next week, it is not expected that they will be causing any further concern to those communities that were placed on alert status last week.

While localized flooding may have closed such spots as the Exstew recreation site, for the most part larger centres such as Terrace seem to have be fortunate this year.

The most recent advisory from the Ministry of the Environment advised that rivers under those alerts would maintain close to their peak levels.

The latest statement outlines the near term prospects:

With the continuing warm weather expected to last all week, melt of high elevation snow continues, and rivers are not expected to recede significantly. They are expected to stay above warning levels for the next few days. Water levels are not anticipated to rise further from snowmelt alone.

Further rise in water level on these rivers will require significant rainfall. Environment Canada’s forecast for the next 5 days does not indicate potential for significant frontal or convective rain.

With little or no chance of rain anticipated in the forecast for the next number of days, a gradual decline of the river levels should continue, providing much in the way of relief for those that had a nervous weekend around the Northwest.

June 9-- Skeena River continues to recede
June 9-- North of Meziadan Junction closed
June 9-- Exstew Recreation site closed
June 9-- Flood watch on Skeena continues
June 9-- Skeena River reached its peak on Saturday
.
Podunkian archives on the 2009 flooding

No comments: