About 30,000 properties were still without power on Vancouver Island early Thursday morning, as B.C. Hydro crews continued to repair the damage from the “bomb cyclone” that began battering the region late Tuesday.
Environment Canada is now warning that another storm is approaching southwestern British Columbia and, while it’s forecast to be less intense than the previous one, it still has the potential to cause damage and disruption and slow down clean-up efforts.
As of 6:30 a.m. PT Thursday, B.C. Hydro said it had restored power to more than 90 percent of customers affected by the midweek storm, in which hurricane-force gusts brought down trees and damaged infrastructure across the B.C. coast, causing outages for more than 320,000 people at its peak.
The utility said it expects crews to continue to work throughout Thursday to restore power to the majority of remaining customers. Crews were expected to arrive on Gabriola Island on Thursday morning and Denman and Hornby islands by the afternoon.
Jesse Seniunas had a tree fall on his pickup truck as he was exiting Port Alberni, B.C., on Tuesday. It came after a “bomb cyclone” system brought wind gusts in excess of 150 km/h to the Island.
As of 3:30 p.m. PT, around 20,000 customers on the Island still had no power.
B.C. Hydro spokesperson Kevin Aquino-Bravo said storm damage was making it difficult for crews to reach all affected areas.
“Crews have been working around the clock to restore power,” he said. “But there is some heavy debris on roads and highways and that definitely impacts our access into certain areas.”
Aquino-Bravo said the utility had deployed crews to the north of Vancouver Island ahead of the storm to ensure crews could reach the area before ferries were cancelled.
The areas hardest hit by the storm include Nanaimo, Victoria and Qualicum Beach, he said.
Footage captured by Ocean Networks Canada at the University of Victoria shows a giant Pacific octopus as it gets knocked around by waves on the morning of Nov. 20 as a ‘bomb cyclone’ hit B.C.’s coast. Oceans Network Canada says the footage was captured at Folger Passage near Bamfield, where instruments measured waves 10 metres high, compared to the usual one metre, and vertical currents three times stronger than normal.
Next incoming storm
Environment Canada says an area of low pressure will deepen off the coast of Washington state Thursday evening before moving north, causing southeasterly winds to increase through Friday on Vancouver Island and the B.C. coast.
Winds are expected to reach a peak Friday afternoon and evening.
B.C. is no stranger to extreme weather — from the atmospheric river over the weekend to heat domes. You might have also heard phrases like polar vortex and bomb cyclone being used by the experts. But why and when did we start using these sorts of descriptions — and when did we stop simply calling it “a cold spell?” Our science and climate specialist, Darius Mahdavi, explains what’s going on.
The forecaster also issued a wind warning early Thursday for southern Howe Sound and Bowen Island, saying outflow winds will pick up overnight and peak Friday morning with gusts up to 90 km/h.
It says further damage, power outages and falling trees may occur, and warns drivers could see dangerous driving conditions on highways due to strong cross winds.
Meanwhile, snowfall warnings were issued in the province’s southeast, where as much as 25 centimetres is expected in the areas around Creston and Fernie by the late Thursday morning.
More snow in the region is expected on Friday and into the weekend, forecasters say.
Armel Castellan, a warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment Canada, says the series of storms is a product of a sustained upper trough of low-pressure high in the atmosphere.
He says that while such a pattern is “pretty typical” at this time of year, it doesn’t always last so long.
“We are dealing with an overall upper trough pattern offshore in the last two months, since mid to late September, and so that’s been a persistent stormy pattern if you will,” Castellan said, adding that “sometimes we deal with it in days or a week, maybe two weeks.”
Castellan said B.C. residents could expect some relief from “more of a cool and dry” weather pattern this weekend, “a stark change” from the weather over the past few days.