The Alberta Government has issued stream flow advisories for several southern Alberta streams. The Sheep River and the Highwood River, tributaries of the Bow River, are both under stream flow flood advisories. The stream flow for the Highwood River is at 504 cms ( as of about 10 AM ) and rising. It is fast approaching the 1995 levels when we had flooding downstream of Carseland. The river flows in 1995 were referred to as Flood of the Century. The combined flow rate for the Bow River below Carseland is 892 cms. This is the combined flow of the Bow River at Calgary, the Elbow River at the Elbow/Bow confluence and the Highwood River at the Highwood/Bow confluence. To convert the cubic meters per second flow rate to cubic feet per second, multiply the number by 35. This converts to 31,220 cfs. 

The weather reports talk about another 30 to 60 mm of precipitation before this stalled low weather system moves out of the area. Southern Alberta has been under drought conditions and was hoping for some moisture. While the farmers are smiling about the rain recently, it is becoming too much of a good thing. What is good for farmers has become bad for residents living along southern Alberta streams and of course bad for anglers that have fishing dates booked this week. I'm hoping that the weather system moves on very soon and that things dry out and the river flow stabilizes and starts to drop. 

Before this current rainfall I was forecasting low stream flows for the Bow River this summer. I based this on the snow pack for the Bow drainage. The four reporting snow pillows were below last years levels and are almost down to no snow remaining. The Highwood snow pillow is in a similar state. Given that we didn't receive the April and May snow storms that we usually see the prospect for the upcoming angling season was not a stellar one. This has all changed. We should have a good scouring of the Bow River stream bed and it will flush out last years weed. The reservoirs should be full and their should be good flows for the fishing season. This large flow should do some major restructuring of the banks, islands and gravel bars. We should have a lot of new structure to fish this year. It should also push the trout to the banks and into the back channels and it should be a wonderful streamer fishing season. I say should be a terrific season. In Alberta we have a saying, "If you don't like the weather - wait 5 minutes".

The rain is continuing and the flows continue to rise. In recent memory I don't recall flows for these recording stations being this high. Unfortunately I don't have the historical flow rates for the last such flood event in 1995. Until the rain came I was lamenting the lack of snow pack. It is a good thing that the snow pack is almost all melted for this season. Can't imagine what the flows might be if there was snow melt to be added to this rain!

Flow Rates in cms. To convert to cfs multiply by 35. High flow for the day is in red.

In the absence of any more copious rainfall, it looks as if the Bow River flows and the Highwood flows are decreasing. The Elbow River flows are holding as water is being released from the Glenmore dam as well as water flowing over top of the dam. When the reservoir levels drop some, so will the Elbow River below the dam.