Tumbler Ridge is looking to go into 2024 still under drought conditions.
While there has been some light precipitation over the last few months, snow Levels are unseasonably low.
According to the Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship the province faced an unprecedented drought, especially across the Peace Region, with the Peace Region and Fort Nelson still at Level five.
Level five is the most severe drought Level, meaning the province expects water Levels to impact socio-economic and/or ecosystem values.
This is the only area in the province at that Level.
The Fort Nelson area hit Level five on July 13 of last year. While other regions across the province (Bulkley Lakes, Vancouver Island) hit Level 5, those areas have since recovered. Vancouver Island went down to zero over October and November, but has since risen to Level one. The Bulkley Lakes area has slowly been recovering, dropping to Level four on October 26, then to Level 3 on November 16.
The Peace Region is broken into three distinct areas: East Peace, North Peace and South Peace. The East and North Peace were at Level four starting June 29, and went to Level five September 28.
Meanwhile, the South Peace—the region Tumbler Ridge is in—hit Level four later (July 6) than the rest of the Peace, but hit Level five just two weeks later. It dropped back down to Level four for three weeks, from October 26 to November 9, but has since climbed back to Level five.
According to the ministry, they expect adverse effects from the drought into 2024. Indeed, farmers saw a 30 percent reduction in harvests in 2023 because of the drought.
And without a significant amount of snow—at least three or four metres—the Ministry of Water, Lands and Resource Stewardship is warning that next summer could be even drier than last summer.
One of the fallouts of that last year was extreme fires, including BC’s worst fire year on record, seeing more than double the total forest burned than the previous worst year.
According to BC Wildfire, there are a number of fires in the North that are still not considered out, and they are worried that some of these—including the West Kiskatinaw Fire—could pop back to life once the weather starts to warm in spring.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.