Last year marked the worst drought season since the Cowichan Weir was built in the 1950s, as there was no substantial rain between January and September.
Today there is some good news, as Cowichan Lake is 99 percent full and there is rain in the forecast.
Catalyst Paper owns the weir and Manager of Environment Brian Houle said mother nature is cooperating a little more this year than she was last year at this time.
“We have rain in the weather forecast, last year we didn’t get rain after the end of January,” said Houle. “We have rain this coming week, we have the lake full today and last year on this day the lake was not full, it wasn’t empty, but it wasn’t full.”
At this point last year, Cowichan Lake was 70 percent capacity and with no rain for seven months, the drought of 2019 was devastating.
More good news comes in the form of the snowpack, as Houle reports that it’s well higher than it was in April 2019.
“We’ve got about 20 percent more snow today than we had last year on this day, but we’re still below average snowpack and it could dry up this week, or we could get rain this week and no more rain until the end of October, we go week-by-week through this,” said Houle.
Houle said, ultimately it’s up to mother nature to determine how bad the drought season will be, or if there will be one at all.
