There is no concern when it comes to drought at this time on either the North or South Thompson Rivers.

That’s according to the B.C. River Forecast Centre. Hydrologist Jonathan Boyd says because the snow melted so early, it looked like we were moving into one of the worst years in recent memory for drought.

“Up until maybe about June 20th or so, that’s what it was all throughout the province and the only thing that would have helped us would be an entire month of rain and so far that has happened.”

Environment Canada’s Bobby Sekhon says we have had a fairly wet July with a week still left in the month. Numbers are unofficial as the month is not over, but Sekhon says “we got about 30.6 millimetres so far this month and that’s pretty much bang on normal for July. July’s average being 31.4.”

The North Thompson is at the lowest drought level while the south Thompson is level two which is considered dry.

Boyd says earlier in the summer, both those regions were at level three and considered very dry, but that was downgraded.

“One week of dry weather, of course the flows will start to go down to more of a base flow condition, but I think, just this month of July having enough rain coming through, that I don’t see us moving into any critical stage for drought.”

Boyd says things appear to be in good shape for the foreseeable future.

“I think for us in that region now, to get into the very dry categories, it would need three to four weeks of very hot and dry [conditions]. We would need a pretty sustained period of hot dry weather.”

Sekhon says the forecast for the next week or so will help those drought conditions remain on the mild side.

He says “we’re not seeing any strong systems. We’re not seeing any big rain makers and we’re not seeing any strong ridges of high pressure.”