Hydrologist Jonathan Boyd, a Hydrologist at BC’s River Forecast Centre, says the Chilcotin Plateau area is at 170 percent of normal.
“It’s not necessarily record territory there, but it is high. Certainly that is an area that we’re quite concerned with already.”
Boyd says this area has just two recording stations, one on Puntzi Mountain and one at Big Creek, but it includes a lot of area including Nazko.
“Unfortunately, there was one other site which was actually named Nazko. The site became so much in disrepair it’s no longer going to be measured. Nazko was significantly impacted by flooding back in 2018. It also had pretty significant high flows in 2021. I would suspect that the numbers in other areas within the Chilcotin would be similar, if there were more measurements.”
Boyd says the 170 percent could go even higher.
“Typically at this time of year we have seen about two thirds of the snow that we’re going to get. I know in 2018 there was a big dump of snow at the end of February and in early March that really pushed things high in your region that year.”
There is less concern in the Quesnel region, which generally includes the Cariboo Mountains and Williams Lake, where the snowpack is at 109 percent of normal.
The next readings will be done on March 1st, and will be released to the public on the 8th.