Heavy snowfall Thursday morning made commuting difficult/ Kelowna10

By Glenn Hicks

where did that come from?

‘Power puking’ snow makes for mid-March commuting surprise

Mar 13, 2025 | 12:32 PM

While Environment Canada had predicted up to four centimetres of snow on higher ground pre-dawn Thursday, what many Kelowna motorists didn’t expect was mid-winter conditions in the valley bottom for their commute.

Kelowna RCMP said they were dealing with at least four collisions in the morning as folks made there way through heavy snowfall during the first part of the morning rush hours.

Snowfall had eased by around 8:30 a.m. but not before various incidents on Highway 97 and in Glenmore.

City of Kelowna snowplow at work March 13/City of Kelowna

Andrew Schwerdtfeger, the City’s Roadways Operations Manager said heavy rain from 3:30 a.m. to 5: 30 a.m. changed to “power puking snow from the east slopes all the way to Glenmore.” He figures two to three inches of wet snow blanketed parts of town, although other areas just had rain.

Highway alerts

Two orange rainfall warnings issued as heavy rain threatens southern B.C. highways

9m ago

Missing Snowmobilers

Three sledders, two whom were missing for days, rescued from Hunters Range area

1h ago

Council grants

Vernon to distribute over $50k in Council Discretionary Grants, $20K to the food bank

Dec 14, 2025

He said there were 12 trucks out this morning dealing with the main arterial routes.

While it wasn’t fun for motorists this morning Schwerdtfeger said at least with warmer road surfaces the snow scraped off clean, leaving bare conditions.

The specialist weather forecasting the city’s roads department receives had predicted snow above the 600-metre mark – impacting the likes of Black Mountain and Tower Ranch – but the snow that hit the valley wasn’t difficult to plow because traction wasn’t a problem.

Scene at higher elevations Thursday morning/Kelowna10 app

As for the coming weeks, Schwerdtfeger said the forecast is calling for a mixed bag of conditions with rain and the potential for freezing overnight and icy surfaces on and off every few days. He said he’d have crews on duty treating things accordingly, but with minus temperatures the sort of scenario we saw this morning could happen again.

“If you’ve taken your winter tires off, maybe not the best decision,” he said.