Water levels in Metro Vancouver reservoirs continue to drop and have reached a low 69 per cent as of July 19.
The downward trend has been spiraling since May when water levels were near 100 per cent of capacity. Since the beginning of June, the three reservoirs feeding Metro Vancouver – Capilano, Seymour and Coquitlam – have dipped 22 per cent.
Unusually warm and dry weather is to blame, compounded by a record-low winter snow pack causing run-offs to lose their volume.
Since Metro Vancouver announced Stage 3 water restrictions on Monday, the government has decided to post daily updates of water consumption in the region, hoping that the billions of litres per day we use will decrease.
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Vancouver hit a summer high for water consumption (so far) on Thursday, July 2 with 1.7 billion litres of water used that day. The overall trend has gone down, but not enough. Warmer temperatures over the weekend caused another spike in water usage on Monday with 1.48 billion litres going down the drain, the highest it has been since July 9.
This is the first time Metro Vancouver has had to implement Stage 3 restrictions since the summer of 2003 when not one drop of rain fell on the region in the month of July.
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