Much of Northern BC under level four drought conditions

Most of the Northern parts of the province are experiencing level four drought, including in Prince George.

According to the BC River Forecast Centre, adverse impacts are likely under drought level four.

“Particularly we look at watersheds that don’t have water storage, that’s really where we see the impacts the most,” said Dave Campbell, Head of the BC River Forecast Centre.

“It could be starting to get into the territory where we’d be concerned about impacts to fish, smaller streams could be fish migration, as well as habitat for fish if there’s not water in the stream channels to provide that habitat.”

Campbell added the access to water is also a concern for things such as agriculture and water supply.

He said there’s been a number of factors that have contributed to low flows across the province.

“The first is an extended period of dry weather, if we look at the rainfall the province has received, in particular through the Central and North Interior,” Campbell explained.

“Since about last August we’ve been tracking well below normal rainfall. That brought us through the winter, in terms of snowpack, that’s kind of the second feature we’re seeing this year, is a very rapid melt of the snow in May. Looking at our June 15th snow bulletin and analysis, there really is no snow left at the monitoring sites within the Prince George region.”

Campbell said Prince George and many other areas are seeing precipitation deficits.

“When we look at that deficit over last year it can be as much as 100-300 millimetres in many areas. That’s the type of rainfall, these kinds of amounts we wouldn’t expect to see in a few months time through the summer,” Campbell said.

“The concern is not a lot of let-up in sight, and really we need to have a prolonged, sustained, well above normal rainfall to alleviate the situation we’re in right now.”