If you’re travelling down Highway 97 today towards the Thompson-Nicola Valley, you may need to reconsider your plans or your route.
A winter storm warning is in effect for the South Cariboo.
Environment Canada has reported 30-centimetres of heavy snow in the 100 Mile House area as of this morning, and up to 15-centimetres of additional snow is expected throughout the day.
“We found the modified Arctic front stalled over that region, and we’ve had two low-pressure systems now scrape by the area and it’s just been snowing nonstop for the last 36 hours or so,” says Meteorologist Matt MacDonald.
Surfaces such as highways, roads, walkways and parking lots may become difficult to navigate due to accumulating snow.
“Rapidly accumulating snow will make travel difficult. Visibility may be suddenly reduced at times in heavy snow,” the national weather agency warns.
MacDonald says once the snow tapers off this afternoon the rest of the week should see sunshine with highs getting up to four or five degrees.
However, he says the overnight temperatures will be below zero and motorists should be on the lookout for black ice when hitting the roads early in the morning.
We've upgraded the Snowfall Warnings to Winter Storm Warnings for the Chiclotin, 100 Mile, Clinton and #BCHwy97 through Begbie Summit. 30cms has already fallen with another 10-15cm by the end of the afternoon. Full details here: https://t.co/bl29uuFbwe #BCstorm pic.twitter.com/8VSPIClabg
— ECCC Weather British Columbia (@ECCCWeatherBC) October 2, 2018
POWER OUTAGES:
More than 3,000 people in the 100 Mile House and Chilcotin areas are without power as a result of heavy snowfall this morning.
“Trees are being forced onto power lines in many locations, and that is due to the snow and the snow load being quite heavy,” says BC Hydro Northern spokesperson Bob Gammer.
“It is a full circuit outage so all the way from the substation to where that circuit travels.”
Several crews are working on the outage trying to restore power as quickly as possible Gammer said.
Unfortunately, there is no estimated time for restoration.
– with files from Rebecca Kelli & Pat Matthews, My Cariboo Now
Crews will be heading to an outage affecting 2,300 customers near #100MileHouse. They'll provide updates as available here: https://t.co/DG5WhTPcOG pic.twitter.com/YTplvkS21G
— BC Hydro (@bchydro) October 2, 2018
Crews will be heading to an outage affecting 900 customers in #100MileHouse. They'll provide updates as available here: https://t.co/tsrIU071K8 pic.twitter.com/GVJsxUhm06
— BC Hydro (@bchydro) October 2, 2018
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