Sparse snowpack levels across B.C. raise fears of severe drought this year

Drought across British Columbia could worsen this year, experts and leaders are warning, as concern grows over a low snowpack in the mountains. 

Snow levels are 39 per cent below normal, according to a B.C. River Forecast Centre report released Thursday — significantly worse than this time last year, when levels were 19 per cent below normal.

Snowpack levels remain below the median for every river basin in the province, with four in every five automated weather stations reporting levels in the bottom 20 per cent of all years since they started collecting data.

The snowpack is especially sparse across the South Coast, ranging from 30 per cent of normal on Vancouver Island to 47 per cent in the Lower Fraser region. Thursday's bulletin shows the Stikine region in northwestern B.C. has the highest snowpack in the province at 90 per cent of the average.

Coree Tull, co-chair of the B.C. Watershed Security Coalition, told CBC News that the limited precipitation in the province's mountains means reservoirs are not being replenished.

That could have devastating knock-on effects on rivers across B.C. — and everyone who depends on water for their livelihoods, such as agriculture, and for essentials like firefighting efforts.

"We are definitely concerned," Tull said. "Because we're in a multi-year drought …  it really raises alarm bells.

"We start to get really concerned about what the spring, summer and fall will look like this year, given the results that we're seeing."

She said in the past year, farmers in some areas have had to cut off irrigation to their crops in some areas, and there has even been shortages of water for battling out-of-control wildfires.

Premier David Eby said the new data reinforces what is "the most dramatic drought conditions that we've seen" in B.C.

"Knowing the farmers didn't have enough water to feed their cattle this summer — knowing the forest fire impacts we've seen — I'm really worried," Eby said at an unrelated press conference Thursday.

"The weather that we're having is so unpredictable and so extreme right now that the economic impacts, and the human impacts, feel much more acute.

"We're the early warning sign for the rest of Canada for what's coming with climate change."

Close to 100 wildfires continue to smoulder in the province, holdovers from last year's record-breaking fire season, the premier added.