Dry, warm fall leading to slightly below average reservoir levels in Southern Alberta

Despite a warm, dry fall, reservoir levels are remaining steady

Reservoir levels in southern Alberta are remaining steady despite a dry fall, with little precipitation.

“We’re actually not sitting too badly in terms of our water levels in the Oldman Reservoir,” said Mark Svenson, environment manager with the City of Lethbridge.

“We are sitting at 54 per cent full. It’s below normal and it’s also about five per cent below last year at this time. Last year at this time we were at 59 per cent.”

According to the province, the average storage capacity is 61 per cent.

Interesting summer

Svenson describes the past summer as an ‘interesting one’. He says heading into the summer, things looked somewhat grim, but heavy rain throughout June and July brought levels back to normal.

However, since then, precipitation in the region has been scarce.

“The temperatures that we’ve seen up to now, generally speaking, have been above normal almost constantly since August, said Natalie Hasell, an emergency management meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC).

Hasell says the southern prairies are expected to be warmer than normal this winter, with the region seeing more precipitation than usual.

Which, Svenson says, will help the current water levels in the long run.

“The water level is lower than what I would like to see, but the province and irrigation companies, they’re not concerned at this point with where our reserves are at.,” he said.

Let it snow

Heading into the winter months, Svenson says all Mother Nature needs to do now is snow.

“We’re optimistic and hopefully going into winter and if we can get a good, even a normal snowpack this winter, it sets us up quite well for spring and this next year,” explained Svenson.

But exactly how much snow will fall is still unknown because Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) says it’s still too early to predict.

“As is often the case, we have equal chance across most of the country so it means it could go either way,” said Hasell.

“We don’t know if it will be above normal, near normal or below normal amounts of precipitation.”

Throughout the winter, Svenson is asking residents to conserve water as much as possible.

He says the City of Lethbridge also plans to announce new incentive programs for water conservation in the spring.