Wintry mess for Interior mountain passes today through Wednesday

It’s going to be a tough couple of days for driving mountain passes in the B.C. interior.

Special weather statements have been issued for the Coquihalla Highway, Hope to Merritt, Merritt to Kamloops, the Okanagan Connector, Highway 3 Hope to Princeton, Highway 3 Paulson Summit and the Trans-Canada Highway, Eagle Pass to Rogers Pass this morning by Environment Canada.

A wintery mix of conditions is expected in most mountain passes today through Wednesday, with mixed precipitation and rain falling on wet snow today. The rain is expected to change back to snow tonight or early Wednesday.

The Coquihalla Summit could see snow change to rain this morning and back to snow after midnight, with 5 to 10 cm of snow this morning and 30 mm of rain this afternoon and evening. Another 15 cm of snow can be expected Wednesday.

Allison Pass should see similar trends, with lesser amounts of precipitation.

Parts of the Okanagan Connector could see 15 to 25 cm by Wednesday afternoon.

Rogers Pass could also see 15 to 25 cm of snow before changing to rain this evening. Another 5 to 10 cm of snow could fall Wednesday.

A strong warm front is expected to bring a lot of moisture and increasing snow level throughout southern B.C. tonight with a trailing cold front following on Wednesday, lowering the snow elevation and producing more snow over mountain passes.

Stay tuned to Drive BC for road conditions.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Steve Arstad or call 250-488-3065 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to tips@infonews.ca and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above.