Showers coming to parts of rain-starved B.C., but ‘not nearly enough’

The clouds rolled in and covered most of the Lower Mainland Friday morning, with more widespread wet weather on its way.

CityNews Meteorologist Michael Kuss says the cooler weather is giving fire crews across southern B.C. a bit of a break.

“As this low tracks up from the south, we’re getting cloud and cooler temperatures, and that’s definitely helping as far as the wildfire situation, but only marginally. We need the moisture and although there is some in there, it might not be more than five or 10 millimeters for even the Fraser Valley and stretching out into the southern Interior,” he explained.

The showers the Lower Mainland will see Friday afternoon through to Saturday are just a “short blip” in a longer-range forecast of warm weather heading into next week.

Wet roads sighting. Rain has reached Vancouver Island. Light rain in Sooke. The brown grass and tinder dry forest can use every millimetre. @CityNewsVAN pic.twitter.com/OLhml121KP

— Michael Kuss (@Kusswx) June 9, 2023

“It looks like that it comes overnight heading into Saturday morning around the Greater Vancouver area. We’d be talking about five to 10 millimeters in a widespread way with isolated pockets of more than that. And then once this system moves through, that takes place Saturday into Sunday, things dry right back out and heat up.”

Kuss says the showers we will see will be much heavier rain for our southern neighbours in Washington and Oregon, and parts of Idaho.

“But we’re only getting touched by this weather maker, so the rainfall for B.C. is going to be light — not nearly enough,” he said.

“Longer rains, there are signs that we could see a more sustained cooldown with more cloud cover and possible precipitation but that’s seven to 10 days out.”

The blip in the warm weather comes as much of the province has gone without significant rainfall since May 5 — more than a month ago.

Related Articles:

• Highway 4 detour closing Friday: Access to Port Alberni, Tofino, Ucluelet blocked

• Entire community of Tumbler Ridge evacuated due to wildfire danger

• Crews making progress on Vancouver Island wildfire: BCWS

There are several wildfires burning out of control in B.C., with major fires seen on Vancouver Island and in northern B.C.’s Peace Region.

Highway 4 linking Port Alberni to the east side of the Island has been closed since Tuesday due to wildfire activity.

Earlier Thursday afternoon, an evacuation order was issued for residents of Tumbler Ridge — a community of about 2,400 people in northwestern B.C. near the Alberta border.

The B.C. Wildfire Service says there are 83 active wildfires in the province as of Friday.