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(BRENDAN KERGIN / iNFOnews.ca)

Five to 10 centimetres of snow are expected to start falling this afternoon, Jan. 8, in valley bottoms in Kamloops and the Okanagan and mountain passes could get up to 50 cm over the next couple of days.

Environment Canada issued winter storm watch Sunday evening for the Coquihalla Highway from Hope to Merritt and Highway 3 from Hope to Princeton with 40 to 50 cm of snow expected. That was updated to a warning this morning to say the snowfall is expected to start this morning, not late Monday as originally forecast.

“A series of weather systems are expected to bring heavy snow to the BC Interior beginning,” the warning says. “A frontal system will sweep through the region on Monday, followed by a slow moving low pressure system that could linger through to early Wednesday.

“Snow is forecast to develop ahead of the incoming front on Monday, and become particularly heavy on Monday afternoon. Periods of heavy snow can be expected for much of Tuesday through to Wednesday morning. Along with heavy snow, strong winds are also possible. Over the highest elevations, winds will be very strong, conditions will be blizzard-like, with cold wind chill and near zero visibility.”

Winds could gust up to 80 km/h near mountain summits and bring near zero visibility.

The Ministry of Transportation has issued travel advisories for the Okanagan Connector from West Kelowna to Merritt, Highway 5 from Kamloops through Merritt to Hope, and Highway 3 from Princeton to Hop.e

Snowfall warnings were issued this morning for the Okanagan Connector and Highway 1 from Eagle Pass to Rogers Pass with up to 15 cm of snow likely to fall. A snowfall warning was also issued early this morning for the Okanagan, Manning-Skagit Valley, Boundary and East Kootenay.

As it is in the mountain passes, snow is expected to start falling later today and taper off Wednesday morning with a total of 10 cm likely to fall.

No warning was issued for Kamloops but 5 cm of snow are forecast for later today. The high temperature today is expected to be -3 Celsius, rising to 4 C Tuesday with a 30% chance of rain before dropping to -6 C overnight Tuesday.

Skies are forecast to clear in Kamloops on Wednesday through the rest of the week with rapidly dropping temperatures to the -16 c to – 18 C range for daytime highs Thursday through Saturday. Overnight lows could drop to -25 C by Friday morning.

The North and Central Okanagan are expected to reach highs of -3 C today, rising to 1 C tomorrow before dropping below freezing again tomorrow night. Penticton could reach -1 C today.

The daytime highs later in the week are forecast to be in the -12 C to -16 C range, dropping as low as -21 C at night under cloudy skies with a chance of flurries some days.

— This story was updated at 8:05 a.m. Monday, Jan. 8, 2024, to say the snowfall watch had been upgraded to a snowfall warning.

— This story was updated at 11:30 a.m. Monday, Jan. 8, 2024, to say travel advisories had been issued for several high elevation highways.

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