Western Manitoba was hit with a spring snowstorm last weekend, but the surprise dump of wet snow shouldn’t cause any flooding, said the province’s senior flood forecaster.
“I don’t think it will make a whole lot of difference,” said Alf Warkentin of Manitoba Water Stewardship. What it means, he added, is that instead of a low runoff, “we’re now looking at a median runoff.”
More than 20 centimetres of snow fell March 28-29 on a large chunk of western Manitoba, with the largest quantities in the region between Lake Manitoba and Riding Mountain National Park.
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The peak amount was in the Amaranth and Alonsa region, west of Lake Manitoba, according to Environment Canada statistics. That region received 35 cm of wet snow.
Warkentin said it’s unlikely the snow will tip the balance toward flooding in Manitoba, because they had already included additional precipitation into their forecast.
“There’s been close to 20 millimetres of water content in some area…. It will cause some increased runoff in western Manitoba, but we had factored in 25 mm into the normal weather conditions.”
He doesn’t anticipate any significant flooding as a result of the late snowfall, because soil conditions in western Manitoba are dry, according to a provincial government survey done in the fall.
As well, forecasters are calling for a cool spring, so the spring melt should be gradual, Warkentin said.
