An elevated climate Two B.C. cities look to increase their snow-clearing budget By Shayna Wiwierski
B
oth the City of Kelowna and the City of Kamloops hope to increase their annual snowclearing budget. Currently, Kelowna’s budget is close to $1.7 million, with Kamloops at $1.6 million. Both have asked city council for an increase of $400,000. “The reason we are increasing the budget is understanding that Kelowna is an ever-growing city. It’s expanding, the development is big, and we have increased substantially over the years,” says Stephen Bryans, the roadways operations supervisor with the City of Kelowna. “Things that have made a challenge for us are hillside developments, culde-sacs, and residential areas that are tough to plow.”
With the city’s current annual snow clearing and ice removal budget, that takes care of clearing the streets, some sidewalks, multiuse pathways, and some parking lots. That includes 1,650 lane kilometres and a sidewalk network of 450 kilometres. Since Kelowna is a microclimate with a substantial elevation, it may snow in some areas but not in others. The city of Kamloops, located two hours north of Kelowna, is similar.
thaw cycles that they have. For
“We have a lot of upper elevations, so it may snow there, but not downtown. The temperature may vary quite a bit from up above to down below,” says Bryans, who adds that their biggest challenge isn’t the snow, but rather the actual freeze-
and is often gone by February.
instance, it may be warm in the day, but freezing over night. That causes lots of ice issues and slippery roads. “Our winters have been changing; more extreme events. We’ve have bigger dumps of snowfalls over the past three years, so that’s changed quite a bit.” Bryans mentions that the first snowfall last year was on November 2, which is unusual for the area as typically snow starts after Christmas Since Kelowna is situated on Lake Okanagan, they also experience lake-effect snow, as the humidity from the lake causes cold air, which translates into snow downtown or along the lake area, but nowhere else in the city.
Kelowna has snow routes in four areas of the city, which were implemented a few years ago.
Because of the change in weather patterns, this past spring they went to city council with a request to add
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ISSUE 2 - 2018 | SNOW MANAGER
