UPDATE: Atmospheric river cutting off Kamloops, Okanagan from Lower Mainland expected to ease

The Fraser Valley flooding has been devastating for those who live in the area, but it has also cut off the Lower Mainland from the Interior. The good news is Environment Canada expects it to ease up over the next day or so.

Highway 1, Highway 99 and Highway 5 are all open again after precautionary closures. There are still advisories for all three highways since there is still some rain and heavy wind in the forecast so they could end up being closed again with short notice.

Highway 3 is still closed since there is debris on the roadway and some significant damage. There isn’t a timeline for reopening since there are 21 sites that need to be worked on before the road can be reopened.

Janelle Staite with the Ministry of Transportation said an assessment should be done in the next day or so to figure out when Highway 3 can reopen.

“Fairly significant amount of work. We’re still completing our overall assessment in terms of timeline but expect in the next day or so to have a sense of when we expect to have that highway reopened,” she said at a press conference this afternoon, Dec. 15.

Environment Canada meteorologist Brian Proctor said there is some more rain in the forecast for today, but it shouldn’t be as bad as it was last week, and it looks like it will be the last of the atmospheric river that brought the flooding.

“In general terms, we’re starting to pull things back a little bit, if we can put it that way. Gradually decreasing some of those precipitation amounts,” Proctor said.

The Coquihalla from Hope to Merritt is expected to receive around 40 millimetres of rain today with winds between 60 km/h and 80 km/h. Environment Canada isn’t forecasting any rain from Merritt to Kamloops, but similarly windy conditions.

The Okanagan Connector is expecting 10 to 15 mm of showers, intermittent rain is forecast for the Trans-Canada Highway and Highway 3 could get around 30 to 40 mm of rain today.

Proctor said the highway closures are more about concerns that there could be some debris or rockfalls because of the sustained rain.

“It’s really a proactive approach the government’s taken. They’re more concerned with the rainfall coming down onto already saturated areas. And we’re looking for more sort of rockfalls or sort of debris flows, that kind of thing,” he said.

At the moment the freezing level is around 2,500 metres elevation, and that’s supposed to drop down to 500 metres around midnight.

Proctor said the Fraser Valley likely won’t get the brunt of this rainfall, and the Coquihalla is likely going to see the most rain.

The Ministry of Transportation announced the highway closures the evening of Dec. 14, and said they would reopen today, Dec. 15, but so far they remain closed.

There are still numerous flood warnings, evacuation alerts and orders, as well as travel advisories.

Check DriveBC and EmergencyInfoBC for updates.