When should we start worrying about the lack of snow in Vancouver?
While low snowpack has immediate impacts on recreation uses (like skiing or snowboarding), another worry is the impact on the summer water supply.
Snow pack acts as water storage, Boyd explained. Instead of rain, which immediately washes through the system, it stays up in the mountains, delaying the release of that water into the spring and summer.
River Forecast Centre
“When you don’t have as much snow pack, then you don’t necessarily have as much storage for the later season,” he said.
But he added that it hasn’t been “necessarily record-breakingly low.” For example, in February 2025, the South Coast snow pack was 59 per cent of normal. In 2024, it was 21 per cent of normal.
Similarly, the Lower Fraser was at 73 per cent of normal last year, and 47 per cent the year before.
Feb. 1, on average, is about two-thirds of the way through the “seasonal snow accumulation season.”
“It’s still not over yet. There’s still potential for a bounce back. It does happen where March can be really snowy, and even snow can continue into April,” Boyd said.
He added that Apr. 1 is considered the snowpack gold standard for the amount of snowpack in a given year.
By Apr. 1 last year, the South Coast ended up at 81% of normal, and then the lower Fraser ended up at 85% of normal.
What is the reason for this?
November and December 2025 and January 2026 all recorded warmer-than-normal temperatures, according to Derek Lee, a meteorologist for Environment and Climate Change Canada.
“And it wasn’t that we didn’t get any precipitation,” he said. “It was just that every time the storms that came in from November all the way into January, it was from the Pacific, so it was a lot of warm air coming along with the precipitation. And that translated to even rain up into the mountains. And hence why we didn’t really see that snow pack build.”
Even when it did build, the frequency of warmer snows washed a lot of it away, Lee added.
While it is normal for storms to come off the Pacific, there were quite a few more atmospheric river events this season, which bring “more of a feed” from the tropics.
“And usually atmospheric rivers have a lot of moisture content and are a lot warmer than normal Pacific storms,” he said.
What about our water reservoirs?
Max Lindenthaler/Shutterstock
Metro Vancouver has three water reservoirs that supply the region with water, one in Coquitlam and two in North Vancouver.
At this time of year, they are typically filled with rain.
Linda Parkinson, Metro Vancouver’s water services director of policy planning and analysis, told Daily Hive that Metro Vancouver’s water reservoirs are at their “typical seasonal levels.”
She said snow pack is important for water levels in spring and summer months, but they don’t know yet what it look like this summer, when water demand peaks.
“It’s too early in February to predict what will happen in the high-demand season, or in summer,” said Parkinson.
“The snow pack comes into play in two ways,” she said. “The amount of snowpack we get. And then the time of year that snow pack starts to melt.”
For example, if the snow pack melts too early, they miss the benefit of it, because their reservoirs are already full from rainfall.
But she said that they can’t control the weather, and emphasized the importance of targeting demand.
To do this, Metro Vancouver is preparing to inform businesses and customers that, as of May 1, they will be implementing stage one lawn watering restrictions, which means lawn watering is only allowed one day per week.
If it’s a particularly dry year, they have three more stages of water restrictions they can implement, “depending on how supply and demand pan out within the high demand season.”
What about the future of our water supply?
In 2019, Metro Vancouver completed a water supply outlook, looking ahead to 2120.
One of the biggest impacts on water supply is climate change, which is projected to cause wetter and warmer winters and drier summers. Another is population growth, which will increase demand.
Parkinson said they need a “two-pronged approach” to address these challenges. One is reducing the amount of water use per capita (with things like lawn watering restrictions). Another is expanding supply, which they are currently doing by building a second water intake at Coquitlam Lake.
These two actions “will be able to see us through at least to mid-century.”
On average, Metro Vancouver’s demand for water is 1.5 billion litres a day. But in summer months, that increases to 1.5 billion litres, with lawn watering the main culprit.
Metro Vancouver
When asked what Metro Vancouver’s plans are beyond 2050, Parkinson again emphasized the necessity to reduce per capita demand and added that they’ve looked at some additional options for increasing water supply.
This includes expanding existing sources (like constructing a new dam and reservoir in the Capilano Watershed) and using new sources (like Pitt Lake or the Fraser River).