MACKENZIE DELTA AND BEAUFORT COAST SPRING BREAKUP NEWSLETTER

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1 MACKENZIE DELTA AND BEAUFORT COAST SPRING BREAKUP NEWSLETTER Report May 21, 2017 at 13:00 UTC Friends of Steven Solomon (Dustin Whalen, Paul Fraser, Don Forbes) Geological Survey of Canada, Bedford Institute of Oceanography tel: Welcome to Breakup 2017 You may also want to check out the Mackenzie-Beaufort Breakup group on Facebook ( This year, in addition to sharing the newsletter to our mailing list of >370 addresses, we are posting the newsletters on the CACCON (Circum-Arctic Coastal Communities KnOwledge Network) website. You can find them at Funding for our current breakup monitoring activity is from the Climate Change Geoscience Program of the Geological Survey of Canada, Natural Resources Canada. Please let us know if you do not wish to receive these reports (contact info above) and we will take you off the list. For those of you living in the north, we welcome any observations of timing of events, extent of flooding, evidence of breakup, or anything out of the ordinary, and we thank you for all of the feedback received so far. For those interested in conditions further south, we recommend that you contact Angus Pippy (Water Survey of Canada) in order to receive his very useful High Water Report: contact Angus at or Water level data presented in our newsletters are courtesy of Environment Canada (Water Survey of Canada) and are derived from their real-time hydrometric data website at which we acknowledge with thanks. Particular thanks to colleagues in Inuvik for keeping so many of the delta gauges operating through the difficult breakup season. Weather reports and forecasts are also from Environment Canada (Meteorological Service of Canada) at Ice road conditions are from the GNWT Department of Transportation road reports and travel alerts Daily MODIS imagery is courtesy of NASA Worldview at 1

2 Current conditions Today s forecast calls for partially cloudy conditions throughout the region over the next few days. Today Inuvik might see a high of +15 C, but then drops to 3-4 C tomorrow and Tuesday to match the conditions found elsewhere in the ISR. Breakup continues to progress at a steady pace in the Mackenzie River, Peel River, and upper delta. Figures 1 to 4 are wonderful photos showing ice conditions late Friday and yesterday courtesy of Gerry St. Amand and Chanda Turner. Thank you for sharing. Figure 1. Large crack spanning the width of Semmler s Channel, 19 May Photo courtesy of Gerry St Amand. 2

3 Figure 2. Looking down East Channel at Airport Channel, just south of Inuvik. 20 May Photo courtesy of Chanda Turner Figure 3. Broken ice in East Branch just up from Airport Channel, near Inuvik, 20 May Photo courtesy of Chanda Turner 3

4 Figure 4. Ice in the Mackenzie River, just downstream of Point Separation, 20 May Photo courtesy of Chanda Turner Water levels At Tsiigehtchic, the Mackenzie River water level (10LC014) (Figure 5) has started to come down. Current water level is which is down 54 cm in the last 24 hours. Likely this downward trend will continue making the threat of flooding at Tsiigehtchic very low. In the Delta, the water levels in East Channel at Inuvik (10LC002) (Figure 6) are up 49 cm in the last 24 hours, and continue to climb. Current level is m. The gauge on Peel Channel near Aklavik appears offline today, but rising water levels are expected for this region as well today and into the next few days. In the outer Delta, the water in Reindeer Channel at Ellice Island (10MC011) increased 7.0 cm in 24 hours to m (Figure 7). 4

5 Figure 5. Water level in the Mackenzie River at Tsiigehtchic (Arctic Red River) (WSC 10LC014) from May 6 (courtesy Water Survey of Canada). Figure 6. Water level in East Channel at Inuvik (WSC 10LC002) from May 6 (courtesy Water Survey of Canada). 5

6 Figure 7. Water level in Reindeer Channel at Ellice Island (10MC011) from May (courtesy Water Survey of Canada). Figure 8 shows that the daily mean water level at Tsiigehtchic has peaked on May 20 th and is lowering. Elsewhere, daily levels at Inuvik, continue to rise while remaining below the majority of the other years plotted (Figure 9). Figure 8. Daily mean water levels in the Mackenzie River at Arctic Red River (Tsiigehtchic) (10LC002) from May 6 this year (black) with equivalent data from the past 9 years and the record year of 2006 (derived from data courtesy of Water Survey of Canada). Red dot indicates current level as of 06:25 (MDT) on May 21 st. 6

7 Figure 9. Daily mean water levels in East Channel at Inuvik (10LC002) from May 1 this year (black) with equivalent data from the past 9 years and the record year of 2006 (derived from data courtesy of Water Survey of Canada). 7