Rainfall warnings end, flood watches remain for B.C.'s South Coast

It’s expected to be yet another wet day on B.C.’s South Coast with more rainfall in the forecast and flood watches now in effect.

The weather is making conditions along rivers and up on the local mountains particularly dangerous.

Rainfall warnings ended for Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley late Friday morning, but only after several days of heavy downpours which brought between 100 and 200 millimeteres of rainfall.

Environment Canada says the rain will taper off to showers by the afternoon in most spots.

“Looking out the window, it looks more like November than January right now, because we do have this atmospheric river that's moving through,” said Bobby Sekhon, a meteorologist for Environment Canada.

There were high streamflow advisories in effect, but those have been upgraded to flood watches on the North Shore, Howe Sound, Sunshine Coast and sections of Vancouver Island.

That’s because this atmospheric river has caused temperatures to rise, creating additional snow melt at higher elevations.

“With the snow melt, of course, we can have more water coming into the systems and your Forecast Center does have some alerts out. We could generally expect rising rivers and faster flows. So certainly anybody in around rivers needs to be cautious, especially when they're flowing so high and fast,” said Sekhon.

Experts say water levels can change rapidly.

“The rivers on the South Coast, they really do respond to this rainfall. So we see them really come up really fast and then drop down once the rain stops,” said David Campbell, head of the B.C. River Forecast Centre.

He says water levels are very sporadic during the wintertime.

“It's not necessarily that kind of steady stream flow that we see at other times of the year and so they're very high. Right now we're getting up into the kind of flows we only see maybe once every, every year,” explained Campbell.

Rivers are expected to reach peak levels on Friday and Saturday and more rain is on the way this weekend.

“Certainly the rivers are dynamic, so that creates public safety hazards related to being in and around rivers,” said Campbell.

He’s urging people to be careful when out in the wilderness this weekend.

“We also caution this is the time where the type of event and weather that we see more impacts associated with it. So that type of thing that could lead to landslides, road washouts, that kind of thing,” said Campbell.

Avalanche Canada says rain is raising the risk for slides throughout B.C.'s South Coast.

The danger rating is “high” for much of the region, which is a four out of five on Avalanche Canada’s risk scale.

That forced Whistler Blackcomb to close several runs Friday.

It also shut down Mount Seymour and Grouse Mountain all together on Thursday, but they have since reopened.