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Runoff Report 1999.....Snow Conditions
The La Niņa conditions during the winter of 1998/99 brought a lot of snow into this area. In all elevations the snow pack was clearly above normal. While in lower and medium altitudes all snow was melted away during the runoff, the snow pack in higher elevations (around 2000 m) was not completely melted and will be carried over to the 2000 runoff. Later in my report I will show the reasons for that and its significance for the Shuswap Lake water level. Throughout British Columbia snow measurements are recorded by a total of 48 snow pillow stations. Information about how those snow pillows work can be obtained following my link to the BC Ministry for Environment. Snow pillow data are not very reliable and should be only used for general trend purposes. Some manual measurements are also taken but not publicized. All snow data seem to be more an educated guess than scientific solid values. For the Shuswap Lake runoff area only one pillow station is existent. It is located between Sugar Lake and Mable Lake in an altitude of about 1800 m. I am not aware of any other manual measurements in this area. Based on those data it can be assumed that the overall snow pack in this region was about 130% to 140% of normal.
Copyright (C) 2003 Bernhard Kramer, Sicamous, BC - Canada webmaster@shuswaplakewatch.com