Okanagan’s drought conditions unchanged, improvements elsewhere

The recent rainfall has not made much impact to the Okanagan Basin or much of the Interior regarding drought conditions, with the exception of two local areas.

The update from the B.C. River Forecast Centre reported the Okanagan Basin at Drought Level 2 Thursday, Nov. 9, indicating adverse impacts to socio-economic and ecosystem values were unlikely.

However, the South Thompson Basin, which includes much of the North Okanagan and Shuswap, improved on a weekly basis and dropped to Level 2 Thursday.

The Upper Columbia Basin also saw a weekly improvement, going from Level 3 to Level 1, which indicated that adverse impacts due to conditions would be a rare occurence.

Meanwhile, the Lower Thompson, North Thompson and Coldwater River basins in the Interior were unchanged on a weekly basis at Level 2.

The Salmon River, Nicola, Similkameen, Lower Columbia, and West Kootenay basins in the Interior were still ranked at Level 3, indicating that it was possible conditions could lead to adverse impacts to the socio-economic and ecosystem values.

The Kettle and East Kootenay basins were also unchanged and still ranked at Level 4, which indicated that adverse impacts were likely.

The B.C. River Forecast Centre has six drought level rankings, going from 0 to 5. As of Thursday, the only three basins still ranked at Level 5 were located in northeastern B.C. The south coast and northwestern areas of the province were ranked at Level 0 at last report.

Drought conditions in B.C. as of Thursday, Nov 9. Green = 0, Yellow = 1, Beige = 2, Orange = 3, Red = 4, Maroon = 5 (image courtesy of the B.C. River Forecast Centre)