Unfortunately there is more rain on the way. We’ve not fully recovered from the deluge of last Sunday/Monday/Tuesday and this next series of storms won’t be as historic on their own, but they will not help the situation.
Comparing last week to this week
Here is last week’s epic 24hr rainfall forecast. All of which very much came true and more.
Here is the upcoming rainfall from 4AM Monday 22nd to 4AM Tuesday the 23rd.
As you can see, a very different beast, not nearly as intense, but focused, unfortunately on the Fraser Valley with over 30mm. Port Alberni and the West Coast of the Island will receive a fair amount as well, 20-25mm.
The other good news is Tuesday’s system will fall as snow at the higher elevations as we can see in the image below. So we should not see the extreme flash flooding in the canyons that we did last week.
Atmospheric River returns Thursday.
It’s coming back. However, unlike last time where it essentially pointed at the Fraser Valley for the majority of the time, this time it does a more normal brush down the Island so no one place will get a catastrophic amount of rain, hopefully.
We’ll of course keep an eye on it. The other issue is that this will be another warm system, so freezing levels may rise and cause snowmelt from Tuesday’s system which will add to the river rainfalls. Tides are also continuing to build for the annual King Tides so all of this will be important to watch.
November 15, 2006
The first, and biggest, storm that I recorded on my station was the one that happened on the same day as last week’s storm, November 15. It was 2006. The year the whole 3rd Avenue and 4th Avenue area flood. Port Alberni was cut off from much of the rest of the Island. Power was out, and we recorded some of the strongest wind gusts ever in our history. My station recorded a gust of 103kph. I actually remember it being over 110kph on the gauge but 103 is what is in my records. You can see them in the Almanac View in the Monthly and Yearly Summaries.
November and December were very stormy months. That was the year Stanley park saw huge trees come down from the wind.
We got a windstorm on November 3, 10 and 15 with winds recorded at my station of 61kph, 91kph and 103kph.
Then we got another storm in December with 63kph winds on December 9, a big 103kph storm on the 11th and more strong winds the 12th and 13.
They also featured plenty of rain too of course, 40-80mm a day.
On those days the “river” was pointed quite squarely at us. I remember my basement flooded, twice! That was the reason we renovated it and re-did our perimeter drains in 2014.
Will BC see a series of storms this fall like we did in 2006? We’ll see. So far we have not seen the intense, broad winds of 2006. Though we have seen a water spout come ashore as an F0 Tornado at UBC. So clearly anything can happen.
Batten down the hatches! More on the way.
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