Skip to content

Wintry weather rolls into the Okanagan valley

The Okanagan and Shuswap saw five centimetres of snow overnight
15514147_web1_Snow-day-Revelstoke13
(Liam Harrap/Revelstoke Review)

It’s time for Okanagan and Shuswap residents to deal with the wintry weather that walloped other parts of the province.

READ MORE: Snowstorm brings chaos to Lower Mainland roads

Environment Canada called for up to five centimetres of snow for the South, Central and North Okanagan overnight and it looks as though they are about right. Another four centimetres is forecast to fall by the end of the day.

In the Shuswap snow started to fall around midnight. Residents can expect between two and four centimetres in the region with temperatures dipping to -19 C overnight.

With wintry conditions come warnings for highways and Highway 3, from the Paulson Summit to Kootenay Pass is expected to be particularly hard hit. Snowfall with total amounts of 15 to 25 cm is expected.

READ MORE: More storms in store for snow-socked Pacific Northwest

While commuters may not be pleased, skiers will be. Big White, in particular, has seen 18 cm fall within the last 24 hours.

The system that brought snow to B.C. has been quite troublesome in other parts of the province.

Thousands of students across much of Vancouver Island and parts of British Columbia’s south coast were off school Monday as the region recovered from a winter wallop and prepared for another.

Schools in Greater Victoria, the Gulf Islands and Comox didn’t open following weekend storms that blanketed some parts of the Island with as much as 40 centimetres of snow.

A number of schools on the mainland, including the Sunshine Coast, Surrey, Langley and Mission, were also shuttered, along with the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford and Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo.

People were still digging out Monday from the weekend storms that brought heavy snow to Vancouver Island and howling arctic winds to parts of the south coast.

Send us your photos and video of your snow experiences by clicking the Contact button and the top of the Home page.

_With files from Canadian Press


@Jen_zee
jen.zielinski@bpdigital.ca

Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.