By Charles Lefebvre

Higher than average snowpack reported in Alberta

Feb 23, 2018 | 10:49 AM

MEDICINE HAT, AB — Due to the winter weather, the amount of snowpack in the mountains is being reported as higher than average.

According to Alberta Environment and Parks snow surveys, as of February 1, the Bow River basin snowpack was at 325 millimetres of snow water equivalent, while the Oldman River Basin was at an average of 325 millimetres. Both are up approximately 100 millimetres up from average levels at this time of the year.

The Bow and Oldman rivers both merge into the South Saskatchewan River.

“From what they’re showing in the month of February, the percentages are probably going to go a little higher than they were last month,” said Colleen Walford, river forecast engineer with Alberta Environment and Parks, over the phone from Edmonton. “There was some really good precipitation at the beginning of the month.”

However, Walford says it is still too early to determine what impact the snowpack will have on river levels.

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“We have three more months of accumulation left,” she said. “So, to really understand what the true impact of what the mountain snowpack has, we’re not going to know until May.

“Last year, we had significantly above snowpack high up in the mountains in both the Old Man and the bow but, unfortunately, we had no precipitation in the summer months, so we ended up, in some cases, with some extremely low flows.”

Walford says the spring will determine the final impact the snowpack will have on river levels.

“We’re going to have to wait for how those winter storms are going to finish up there, and then it really does depend on how quickly the temperature switch in the mountains from below zero to above,” she said.

“The last two years, they have been a little early, so we’ll be keeping an eye on that, but again, if the mountain snow pack melts a little earlier, in the grand scheme of things, it would lower the risk for how it would potentially impact the rains that would come later, in sort of the middle of June and end of June.”

Officials will be conducting measurements next week for the month of March, with results known by March 9.