The top disaster news in the past few weeks has been major flooding in communities across Canada. From New Brunswick to Alberta and British Columbia, it’s been a wet spring for Canadians across the country. Here in BC, the city of Grand Forks was inundated with the most water they’ve seen since 1948. Other communities…
*Edited 21 May to add books by Michael Kodas and Gary Ferguson. 2017 was the worst wildfire season on record in BC. A total of 1,342 fires burned through almost 3 million acres of forest. At the height of the fires, over 65,000 people across the province were evacuated from their homes. The three largest…
It’s amazing how much impact the weather has on your state of mind. It’s June and the land is green, lush and verdant after a cool, damp spring. The frogs finished their evening chorus a few nights ago, and the river is starting to drop. Yesterday we had almost 16 mm of rain—an event almost…
This summer I was worried about drought. About the ability of the greatly diminished Cowichan River to support the fall Chinook salmon run. These worries seem silly now that the winter rains have arrived, with a record 27 days of rain in October. A sodden procession of greyness and damp. This is the land of…
It’s spring in our northern cold climates, and that usually means ice jams. Got a shot yesterday of a small one on the Oldman River, just south of Lethbridge. Why do ice jams mainly form in spring, and how do they affect rivers? Ice jams usually form during spring breakup, though they have been known…
Watershed Moments: Thoughts from the Hydrosphere 