By Charles Lefebvre

Little risk of overland flooding at this point from Cypress Hills melt: Alberta Environment

Mar 29, 2018 | 4:47 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB — At this point, overland flooding is not expected in Cypress County.

For the past week in the Municipal District of Taber, overland flooding from a rapid snow melt has resulted in several road closures, household evacuations and a local state of emergency in the town of Taber.

Colleen Walford, river forecasting engineer with Alberta Environment and Parks, says the most recent surveys show snow pack level in the Cypress Hills shows that it is lower than average for this time of the year. Walford says the snow pack level in the hills was measured between 50 and 105 millimetres of snow water equivalent at the beginning of the month.

“In the last two weeks, there’s been extreme melt or sublimation of the snow in the portions of the Cypress Hills that runs towards Medicine Hat,” she said over the phone from Edmonton. “That’s happened pretty aggressively over the last two weeks.”

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Walford says the melt has not seen any noticeable increase in water levels in the creeks near the hills.

In 2010, several communities in southeastern Alberta and southwestern Saskatchewan were victims of flooding due to heavy precipitation.

Walford says at this point, there is little risk of flooding from the snow melt in the county.

“All indications are that those flow rates were all dropping across all of the little creeks that run out of the Cypress Hills,” she said. “Unless you get an extreme blast of winter again, I think for the most part, the plains snow pack near Medicine Hat is pretty much complete for the year.”

Walford says the next survey for the region is scheduled this weekend, but could be postponed due to weather.