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This year’s snowpack looks “really good” in parts of Alberta’s Rocky Mountains, says a scientist.
In the Bow River basin, the snowpack is at an all-time high at Lake Louise, and other snow surveys are above average to well above average, but aren’t breaking records, University of Saskatchewan professor John Pomeroy said Monday.
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Stations set up by the Global Water Futures Observatories stretching from Kananaskis to Jasper National Park are showing “remarkable” snowpacks this year, said Pomeroy, the research facility’s director.
“Our latest snow surveys are showing more than double what the average would be at this time of year, and in some cases triple what we had last year for the water equivalent of the snowpack,” he said. “That’s pretty good news.”
And the snowpack is deep — measuring 2.6 metres above Helen Lake in Banff National Park to 2.3 metres in a forest clearing near Fortress Mountain, said Pomeroy.
The snowpacks are close to average at mid and lower elevations due to melting and rain during the winter, he said.
“At the very highest elevations, when that rain hits when it’s mixed with snow, the snowpack will soak it up and it’s still holding it, and that’s why we have really high values at the highest, coldest places,” said Pomeroy.
The snowmelt should be “exceptionally high” this year in the Bow River basin, said Pomeroy, adding it could be “one of the highest in our lifetimes.”
“That will help us with the low flows into rivers that we’ve been seeing in recent late summers and falls, which has been problematic in Calgary and for the irrigation downstream,” said Pomeroy.
But an eye will need to be kept on high stream flows, he added.
“Snowmelt by itself doesn’t generally cause flooding in Calgary and in the area, but it can be a contributing factor if there’s rain during the snowmelt, and if the snowmelt is fast,” said Pomeroy.
Southern Alberta snowpack is extremely low
But the situation looks much different south of Calgary, in the Oldman River basin.
Recent Alberta Environment snow surveys are at record lows in the southern Alberta Rockies , said Pomeroy. At Akamina Pass, for example, the early March survey is the lowest ever, he noted.
At Akamina Pass in 2023, there was 260 millimetres of water equivalent — the depth of water once it melts — in the snowpack. This year there’s 162 millimetres.
“In the Oldman, they need to prepare for the possibility of severe drought this year,” said Pomeroy.
But he’s reluctant to call 2026 a drought year in southern Alberta, with conditions depending on how much moisture the region gets this spring.
The western United States is experiencing its most severe drought and heat wave since records began being kept in the 1800s, said Pomeroy.
“That exceptional drought extends up into the headwaters of the Oldman River, which are in Glacier National Park, Mont., but it also goes up into the Pincher Creek area.”
An attribution study showed the Western U.S. drought would be “virtually impossible” without the extra greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, said Pomeroy.
“It’s human-caused climate change, for sure,” he said.