Atmospheric river floods fields in B.C.'s Fraser Valley, farmers brace for more rain

A Fraser Valley farmer says his berry fields are flooded after heavy rainfall across much of southwestern B.C., as he and others in the farming community brace for more rain. 

Harry Sidhu, whose family owns a blueberry farm on the Sumas Prairie, says he is among those nervously watching the skies after an atmospheric river dumped up to 200 millimetres of rain on the South Coast over the weekend, according to the province's River Forecast Centre.

Sidhu says farmers are still recovering from the catastrophic November 2021 floods that destroyed farms on the Sumas Prairie, a low-lying part of the Fraser Valley about 90 kilometres east of Vancouver.

"It's a lot of bad memories, lots of stress, anxiety, and a lot of the other producers feel the same way," Sidhu said Monday.

Sidhu says he won't know the extent of the damage to his field until spring. 

"When fields are submerged underwater ... it starts to cause issues with the roots — root rot or cane diseases," he said. "These are things that are going to come up in the latter months. It's just the risk of the unknown." 

Jaswant Dhillon's fields were submerged by more than a half-metre of water on Sunday. He says he just planted new blueberries last year after his crops were destroyed in 2021.

"We're worried about the future," Dhillon said.

Although Abbotsford received a break from the rain on Monday, it is expected to return and persist over the next few days.

"We hope that the impacts are not catastrophic. We are not expecting them to look anything like we saw in 2021," Environment Canada meteorologist Armel Castellan said.

The River Forecast Centre issued an upgraded flood warning for the Squamish River and tributaries including the Cheakamus River on Monday, as another torrent of heavy rain was expected across the province's South Coast.

A bulletin at 5:15 p.m. Monday said water levels in the Squamish River were rising, according to a gauge near Brackendale, a neighbourhood north of downtown Squamish, B.C.

The forecast centre has maintained flood watches for the rest of the province's South Coast, spanning all of Vancouver Island, the Sunshine Coast, the North Shore mountains and parts of the Fraser Valley, including the Sumas River.

Lower-level streamflow advisories are in effect for the Central and North coasts.