JULY 2019 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC


7 Dry weather ushers in provincewide drought


Precipitation at historic lows across the province


by PETER MITHAM OKANAGAN FALLS—The


snowpack around the reservoir that supplies rancher Brian Thomas with water was looking good in February. While the Okanagan snowpack was about 20% below normal, he wasn’t worried.


But when he took another look in March, warm temperatures had stripped the slopes of snow. When he turned out his herd of 200 cattle onto their range above Okanagan Falls in May, he spent the first month hauling water to them. By mid-June, the reservoir was half full. A year earlier, it was overflowing. He regrets not shutting the dam at the end of February, but that’s three months earlier than he used to. “It seems everything is getting earlier,” he says. “I think we’re going to run out of water in August. I’m scared here right now even to open the dam up yet. I’m alternating fields trying to irrigate everything, but just enough to keep it growing.” While he cut hay a week


early, his barley and peas are slow.


“[Barley] didn’t germinate


that great. The ground was so dry,” he says.


Thomas usually sells a large amount of hay but he doesn’t expect to do so this year. Storm clouds forecast for late June seemed more likely to deliver lightning rather than rain – a concern in a season that’s proving the driest since 2003, the year of the Okanagan Mountain Park wildfire. “It’s pretty well province- wide that the drought is affecting, which I haven’t seen before,” said Jonathan Boyd, a hydrologist with the province’s River Forecast Centre. “It’s pretty much the whole province that’s vulnerable.” Of the province’s 32 basins, all are at Level 2 drought


ratings or higher. Fort Nelson was the one basin where the level was extremely dry, the highest of the four levels. The rating means water supplies are insufficient to meet economic or ecosystem needs. Conditions were such that the BC Oil and Gas Commission suspended water use for short-term licensees on June 12 on several watercourses in northeastern BC.


Level 3 drought exists in 21


of the province’s 32 basins, primarily in the northern interior and across southern BC from Vancouver Island to the Kootenays. The level indicates the potential for serious economic and ecosystem impacts. Restrictions on open fires are in place in many parts of BC. The extent of dry conditions this year is notable, and the result of several factors, explains Boyd. Precipitation levels in


March, April and May were the lowest in recorded history at weather stations across the province, and this followed a below-average snowpack that melted earlier than usual. “It’s been one of, if not the earliest melts of the year, on top of it being a low snowpack year,” he says. While this year didn’t see the devastating flooding that struck the province in the past two years, two blasts of heat in March, then again in May, eliminated the chance of any run-off at all. Dry conditions in Alberta as


well as the Washington and Oregon mean TNT Hay Sales in Chilliwack has been pushing out bales non-stop. Demand for hay in the US has increased in step with stateside milk prices, squeezing what’s available for farmers in Canada. The good news is that rainfall in the Fraser Valley seems to be cooperating with forage producers. “We’ve got some rains at


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DRY SEASON: Okanagan Falls rancher Brian Thomas says dry conditions have left him managing water and fearing fire. [JUDIE STEEVES PHOTO]


the right time, so far,” he says. “It’s when you’ve got six weeks of no rain, then all of a sudden everybody who doesn’t have irrigation on their grass, or even the guys that do, don’t get the tonnage anymore.”


This caused problems in


the Lower Mainland last year, and dry conditions on Vancouver Island mean hay will be in demand there this year.


On the other hand, fruit


growers seem to be taking the weather in stride. Oliver orchardist Pinder Dhaliwal took a break from overseeing his cherry pickers to note that moderate temperatures and adequate moisture have been good to fruit growers. A fresh round of precipitation in late June was set to benefit growers, but Dhaliwal says August could be a different story.


High temperatures and a lack of moisture could prompt trees to shut down and draw back moisture from the ripening fruit. This would result in smaller fruit less capable of being stored, and render trees susceptible to winter damage and disease. This in turn could reduce yields in 2020. “It’s not too bad right now,”


he said. “[But] you don’t want the water levels falling.”


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