Tuesday morning, I was sitting in my office listening to the rain pound the roof. It had been going on long and hard enough to make me nervous. Then, mid-morning, it started snowing. Huge clumps of wet snow.
Better than rain, I thought, until I saw the way the silly trees that hadn’t dropped their leaves were drooping under the weight. Branches breaking.
Two and a half inches of snow later, it started to rain again. Really rain. I heard rumbles of rocks slipping and sliding somewhere out there. Maybe a tree dropping a limb, or falling. The creek roaring.
I couldn’t help myself, and threw on my rain gear, opened my umbrella and went out to take a look. Shook wet snow as best I could off the larch, off the mountain ash. Hauled broken willow branches off the driveway. Went over to the creek and watched the muddy water swirling like it was spring.
Bruce McGonigal, who worked for many years with water management in Smithers and still keeps careful track of what’s happening with our creeks and rivers, sent out this report:
Wet and then more wet. And then yet more.
In case you were wondering…….yesterday we were overwhelmed by some rather substantial rain. And those conglomerate snow flakes…big enough to bring down a goose.
I did a visit to Environment Canada’s met. site for Smithers Airport this morning….
69.4 mm recorded over the 24 hour period for October 24th. Previous record rainfall was recorded on same day in 1966 at 24.1 mm.
There you go, in case you were wondering – Smithers area smashed the previous rain fall record in a rather substantial way.
Today, the sun is shining and the snow is melting. The creek is settling down. Rumour has it, though, that there’s fog down in the valley.
Sheila Peters 
Wow ~ We’ve had a bit of snow at West Lake and lots of rain and a LOT of WIND ~
One of our CICK DJs reported it was ‘pouring snow’ that day!
A perfect description – today it’s blowing snow. Shiver.
Bruce just read this Sheila and it put a smile on his face! Great post he said!
The waterman himself – I am most honoured.