Relief from the rain is on the way, but June will go on record as being one of the wettest.
Ron Lakeman, fire weather behaviour specialist with the Southeast Fire Centre, said last month’s rain total nearly doubled the previous record.
“The Castlegar total was 227.7 millimetres,” said Lakeman. “The previous record was 117.7 millimetres in 2005.”
As the week progresses, Lakeman said we will likely move away from the cooler, wet weather.
“There is some definite hope on the horizon,” he said. “It’s kind of a gradual improvement as we go through Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. It’s not going to suddenly go from the cool, wet weather that we’ve had to wall-to-wall sunshine and 30 degrees plus. It looks like we’ll get there by Friday or Saturday.”
But don’t put away the umbrella and rain boots too soon; Lakeman said that there is still a chance of showers Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
The wet weather on the weekend caused problems for the Canada Day crowd.
“It was like a mass exodus of tents and people scurrying out of the park like ants,” said Tom Thomson, executive director of the Nelson and District Chamber of Commerce. “The only ones that couldn’t get out were under the Rotary shelter and didn’t want to get out because it was pouring so hard.”
Thomson said he was hopeful when they were setting up at Lakeside Park at 6:30 a.m. but with the weather the city had seen recently, event organizers were expecting rain.
“That was one of the hardest rain falls I can remember seeing on Canada Day,” he said. “We’ve had some showers in the past, but that deluge we had at about 2:30/2:45 p.m. was really significant weather event.”
The rain fall caused flooding at Lakeside Park and led to the cancellation of the fireworks.
According to Fortis BC the levels of Kootenay Lake for July 2 were 1753.7 feet, creeping closer to the 1974 record of 1754.24 feet.
Even though music and events carried on at the waterfront until 10 p.m., Thomson said much of the crowd decided to stay home.
“The rest of the day we carried on with the music, but once you’ve lost a crowd it’s difficult to get them back,” he said. “Now we’re looking at rescheduling the fireworks. Obviously it was so wet on the playing fields and then it started getting really foggy so we may not have been able to see the fireworks anyways. We had some discussion with the Nelson firefighters about rescheduling them for the BC Day long weekend.”
Thomson said they are waiting for final confirmation about the fireworks, and will potentially be planning music and other events for the weekend.