With a fraction of the normal amount of snow present on Vancouver Island's mountains, provincial authorities are monitoring levels closely in case the shortage brings drought and low stream flows in the summer months.
The River Forecast Centre, the province's snow basin monitoring agency, released its most recent data this week, showing levels on the Island to be the lowest in B.C. While the snow pack has improved from the seven per cent reported in January, the volume on the Island's mountains is still just 28 per cent of what the monitoring agency usually finds in February.
Usually by early February, two-thirds of the winter's snow has fallen in the mountains. On Feb. 1, 26 centimetres was measured in the Jump Creek location, south of the Alberni Valley. This translates into a snow-water equivalent of 113 millimetres, about 18 per cent of normal levels. Last February, 823 millimetres of snow water was recorded in Jump Creek.
"Given the time of year, it will require significant wet weather over the next two to three months to recover the snow pack to normal levels," read the forecast centre's February update. "While lower spring runoff can be expected, spring and summer weather conditions will be the key factor in determining whether or not drought and low flows will occur this summer."
This brings concerns for fish populations, as a lack of water stored in the mountains could bring shallow streams in the spring and summer.
"I don't know if we can really catch up," said Bob Cole, who works with the natural resource management organization West Coast Aquatic.
"All the littler streams and creeks, they're the ones that concern me — the ones that hold the wild coho."
Although in past years March precipitation has brought large volumes to the mountains surrounding the Valley, Cole said it's the snow from the first half of the winter that usually serves as a valuable store for the drier summer months.
"It's the compacted snow that gets very dense and forms a lot ice that lasts the longest through the summer," he said. "Lots of snow late doesn't compact and freeze solid enough to be that slow melting ice in the spring or in the summer. But I'm not panicking yet, Mother Nature has her way."
