Lakes In Our Listening Area Surging After December Rain

We could go from low water conditions to flood risk management operations in just a couple of weeks.

That’s the situation locally, and with more rain in the forecast for at least the next week, the waters are only going to go higher.

In a video posted to Twitter, BC Hydro’s Stephen Watson says the Comox Lake Reservoir has come up, putting it in normal operating territory.

“We had well over a couple hundred millimetres of rain fall on those watersheds so in the case of the Puntledge River system the Comox Lake reservoir rose about three metres,” said Watson.

“We went from drought to flood-risk management in a very short period of time.”

With rains predicted for the next seven days however, river flows at Puntledge River will be high, dangerous, and fluctuating.

Waters are also rising at the Strathcona Dam. BC Hydro will release more water down the Campbell River to get things to a normal level by Monday night.