Snowpack and Snowfall Not Astounding
Prince George, B.C. – January is shaping up to be “average” when it comes to precipitation. According to Environment Canada, Prince George has received about 25 centimeters of snow so far this month. Normally , Prince George gets about 55 centimeters for the whole month, so Environment Canada’s Doug Lundquist says the City is on track for a normal January.
He says the real problem has been the freeze-thaw cycle which meant heavy snowfalls had a rapid melt, then a freeze up. That cycle is considered a major factor in the challenging road conditions being faced by many residents. December saw 75 centimeters of snow fall in Prince George, well above the normal average of 48 centimeters but not even close to the record 136 centimeters of white stuff that was dumped on the city in December of 1990.
As for the snowpack, the latest information puts the snowpack in the Upper Fraser basin at 151% of the norm for this time of year, while the Nechako basin, at 59%, is well below the normal snow levels for this time of year. The Skeena-Nass region is 94% of normal , the Stikine, 117% and the North East is the heaviest, at 167% of normal levels.
The map below, courtesy River Forecast Centre, illustrates areas with highest ( dark blue) and lowest levels of snowpack as of January 1st.
Comments
How can you slam the Mayor in one article for “falsely” stating the snow pack is 150% of normal, saying it’s really 60%, then post this article that clearly show 151% of normal for the same area?
I think someone owes the Mayor an apology.
14 min. That’s the time between the two articles.
“The mayor in her reply says “It’s been a record snowpack, we’re at 150% of normal” writes the Mayor. That is not correct. According to the River Forecast Centre, the snowpack in the Nachako Basin was 59% of normal and the snowpack in the Upper Fraser region is at 151% of normal as of January 1st.”
(You misspelled Nechako)
You do know this is a map about watersheds. Prince George, Vanderhoof, McBride, Fort St. James, they all fall into the Upper Fraser watershed.
The Nechako Basin is the watershed area that feeds the Kemano River through the tunnel at the far end of Ootsa lake. It has nothing to do with Prince George, unless they have way lots of snow and have to release extra water into the Nechako like in 2007.
Total accumulated snow pack numbers are s statistic which is very useful for calculating expected run off in the spring, potential flooding and filling of reservoirs, etc. I do not see how total numbers relate to a city’s snow clearing activities which do not deal with total accumulations but with individual snow falls as they happen, with periods of no snow fall in between.
Once the crews have cleaned and sanded the streets of the latest snow who cares how deep the accumulated snow is in the backyards?
A mother who is worried about her child’s safety because the intermittent snow falls have not been dealt with in an efficient and speedy manner (clearing and sanding) has every right to ask for an explanation from a mayor where the buck stops.
It is up to a mayor to handle the request in an educated and polite manner. Offering to listen to suggestions for improvements and working together would be also be an essential element to an intelligent conversation.
Snowfall in the Torpe or West Fraser does not affect PG or its snow clearing.
Our accumulation is equal to or not quite as heavy yet as last year. We have a trampoline frame in the back yard which disappears from view every January but still has a ways to go. If our accumulation in PG was 150% of normal it should be long buried by now.
Our Mayor is not too swift with such things.
Remember, she has other people giving her information and likely has the main theme written by someone else and might then tweak it. It is unlikely that she sat in her office and typed the letter out herself and looked up the facts herself.
If someone else wrote it for her or told her here are the facts, then we have one more indictor that we have a major problem in not having well qualified people working at City Hall.
If she wrote it, then we know why they need some communication people there to guide her before she “opens her mouth”.
Nimrod …. we are not clearing snow in the McGregors …. we live in PG.
Gus, perhaps diffent areas of PG have different snow amounts – big difference between the north side of city and the bowl.North side leans toward the McGregor area………
These are the 17 stations in the Upper Fraser that are used to measure snow depth. The station numbers with a P on the end send information every 3 hours.
So, the list has the station number, the name, the elevation in metres as well as the latitude and longitude
1A01PYellowhead184752° 54’118° 32′
1A02McBride (Upper)159053° 18’120° 19′
1A02PMcBride (Upper)160853° 18’120° 19′
1A03PBarkerville148353° 3’121° 29′
1A05Longworth (Upper)169353° 57’121° 26′
1A06AHansard62254° 4’121° 51′
1A10Prince George A68453° 52’122° 40′
1A11Pacific Lake75654° 22’121° 34′
1A12Kaza Lake124756° 1’126° 17′
1A14Hedrick Lake111354° 6’121° 0′
1A14PHedrick Lake111854° 6’121° 0′
1A15Knudsen Lake159854° 18’120° 46′
1A16Burns Lake82054° 14’125° 44′
1A17PRevolution Creek167653° 47’120° 22′
1A19Dome Mountain176653° 37’121° 1′
1A19PDome Mountain176853° 37’121° 1′
1A23Bird Creek119653° 40’125° 20′
Station 1A10 is at the PG airport in the field at the southern end of the property.
We need to know the measurement form that station and a determination of what percentage of normal that is. That is the only one which is relevant to PG and the particular location of Ospika.
Nimrod, please explain where the water comes from, (24/7/365) that is the Nechako River.
pansy … yes they do. The complaint came from a person living in the bowl, not the Hart.
Most of the 17 stations from which the cumulative data that generated the 150% stations was derived are at higher elevations to pick up mountain snowpack.
Snowpack is used to provide an indicator for high spring water flow which provides an indicator for flooding expectations.
If she was responding to a potential flooding situation along the Fraser waterfront she could use the snowpack data. However, for snowfall in PG, the data is useless …. just like the mayor … ;-)
1B01Mount Wells148953° 43’126° 25′
These are the 7 stations which measure the Nechako Basin
1B01PMount Wells148953° 43’126° 25′
1B02Tahtsa Lake131953° 35’127° 38′
1B02PTahtsa Lake131953° 35’127° 38′
1B05Skins Lake87753° 46’125° 59′
1B06Mount Swannell159653° 21’125° 16′
1B07Nutli Lake150253° 27’126° 17′
1B08PMount Pondosy141353° 9’126° 52′
Sorry … that should be 8 stations …. my note split the table … :-(
In any case, the city has a duty to maintain the main arteries and arterioles of traffic within the city.
@Nimrod it doesn’t matter if there was 200% snowpack, the major routes must be cleared. If the city is defaulting on that basic premise of contracted duties and laws, I submit that we need at the very least a review, and more than likely a mayor/council. We live in PG, we get snow, it’s not a new thing. We used to have a budgeted surplus to deal with it. We used it up because we had some major snow falls, we should have budgeted more and we instead got a super fancy RCMP HQ (far more than is required), and mayoral trips to here there everywhere on tax payer dollars.
Something smells in PG, and it ain’t the pulpmills
I agree the roads should be better and I don’t think the mayor has done a very good job in office.
However,
I’m with Nimrod on this one. Why is Ben bashing the mayor?
The picture above clearly shows 151% for snow pack which is exactly what the mayor is quoted as saying.
As for Ben’s article. This is what he wrote.
————————————-
The mayor in her reply says “It’s been a record snowpack, we’re at 150% of normal” writes the Mayor. That is not correct. According to the River Forecast Centre, the snowpack in the Nachako Basin was 59% of normal and the snowpack in the Upper Fraser region is at 151% of normal as of January 1st.
As for snowfall, Environment Canada advises the City of Prince George received 75 centimeters of snow in December. That is well above the average for December which is 48 centimeters. For your information Madam Mayor that equates to about 64% more than normal and a hell of a long way off from 150%. So far, January is on track for an average January snowfall.
————————————–
If you do some math, you find some interesting numbers.
75cm/48cm *100%= 156%. So the 150% is correct for December.
On the other hand, 48cm/75cm *100%= 64% which is the number Ben is quoting.
Both statements are actually correct. It’s 64% more than normal.
And it is 150% of the normal.
Notice the difference in the words “more than” and “of”…..
Yes but it also is the pulp mills (and the refinery and FMC and the brewery and the landfill and a few other industrial plants and a few woodburners etc.)
Hummer, don’t do math
This map shows the Nechako Basin, you may note the skinny section that goes through downtown PG
images/map.jpg.jpg
What part of the concept of “snowpack” do people not get????
There is virtually no relationship with a snowpack measurements over hundreds of thousands of hectares of land which gathers melt water from snow in the spring and sends it down the Nechako and Fraser and the snowpack in the Prince George City limits which sends water into a few creeks here and there.
Look at the map …. it says “BC RIVERS FORECAST CENTRE” then it says “BASIN SNOW WATER INDEX”.
There is not one mention of snowfall on the ground within the PG city limits.
Just as we cannot base the snow on the in the Hart on the snow on the ground at the airport, we cannot base the snow on the ground in PG to the snow on the ground in McBride. Both are in the Upper Fraser Watershed but each have unique snowfall records that could be significantly different from each other.
The connection made by the Mayor’s letter (whoever may have actually written it for her signature) to snowpack is totally erroneous.
The column heading uses the words “snowpack and snowfall” in such a way that it is obvious that they are not synonymous.
So when the snow has melted in PG but there is still a snow pack in the basin does that mean there is still snow in PG but can’t see it. Shari help me out here.
Hartly2: “Yes but it also is the pulp mills (and the refinery and FMC and the brewery and the landfill and a few other industrial plants and a few woodburners etc.)” FMC???
Dragonmaster, all waters that flow into the upper Fraser River are from the “Upper Fraser” Watershed, wether they are called Stuart, Nechako, Mud or whatever. The picture above shows the pretty dark blue of that watershed.
Most watersheds are named after the major river they flow into, bust since the Kemano project changed the nature of the watershed (by making the water flow west under the mountains) they named it differently.
Slinky, you can’t show an oil and gas map to describe the watersheds. If we went by that map then water from below Clinton flows into the Nechako.
All this ranting about watersheds and wether the mayor should be using them or not is besides the point.
Ben Meisner publicly shamed the mayor for using false data. When in fact it was his interpretation of the data that was faulty.
Meisner’s integrity as a editor and journalist is at question here.
Sure we do not expect him to be perfect, but if he doesn’t apologize for his mistake, then the objectivity of this site is called into question.
Also quoting and writing about emails that hurt someones position, and not publishing all of them is also wrong.
Comments for this article are closed.