Warm weather next week could provide break for flood, winter weary Interior

PENTICTON – Next week’s weather forecast should be welcome news to the winter weary, as well as to those on flood watch.

Environment Canada meteorologist Lisa West says the latest 10-day forecast calls for a ridge of high pressure to build throughout the Southern Interior staring on Sunday, April 22, resulting in two or three days of sunny skies and temperatures in the low 20s.

“It’s the most drastic warm up of the year so far,” West says.

A sudden change to warm temperatures isn’t the best news for those monitoring flood conditions in the region. The warm weather could melt the high snowpack and bring a lot of meltwater down to the Thompson and Okanagan valleys in a short period of time.

But the good news is next week’s warm up is expected to be interrupted by a low pressure system that should bring cooler air for at least a couple of days by the middle of next week, which will slow the melt.

“The best weather pattern for a gradual melt would be an alternating pattern of a few warm days, followed by a few cool days,” West says, adding meteorologists are watching weather models carefully as they assess conditions through the end of next week.

“There is a lot of uncertainty among existing models as to whether the high pressure ridge will rebuild or the low pressure system will linger,” she says. "The best conditions would be cycle of high and low pressure systems.”

Meanwhile, the Central Okanagan Regional District emergency operations centre says flooding on Okanagan Lake is not expected to be an issue this year as the lake level is 51 centimetres lower than the same time last year.

But with the snowpack in the Okanagan at 150 per cent of normal for this time of year, flooding this spring will be based on how quickly the upper elevation snow melts. We have already seen several road washouts and several municipalities are preparing all the same. 

With the spring freshet three to five weeks away, local governments are monitoring snowpack levels and runoff, and working with the province to be prepared.

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