LateBoof — Stikine

STIKINE — GRAND CANYON · window opens when Telegraph Creek drops under 550 cms

Opens ~Aug 20 · 46% odds it's open Aug 20

Issued Jul 04 — gauge diving 10%/day but don't chase it — the cold snap cut the melt, and cold Julys keep snow in the bank upstream; steep-plunge analogs (median Aug 9) blended with the cold-July model (Aug 26) land here. Next call Jul 15 as the gauge tightens the picture.

941 cms · ↓ falling 1.7× the 550 line gauge Jul 04 ↗

This year against the last 10

P95–max

P90–95

P75–90

P25–75 · half of years

P10–25

P5–10

min–P5

this year

median

550/300 window

draw a year:

Today's 941 cms sits at the 50th percentile for Jul 04. Hover or touch for any date's numbers; tap a year below to draw it. Where the black line drops inside the green dashes, the canyon opens.

Odds the window is open, day by day

A window only counts when it holds 7+ days under 550 — orange is that; blue is a window that opened and rain took back. 72% open on Sep 1.

The watch log

Jul 04 opens ~Aug 20 ±15 d · gauge diving 10%/day but don't chase it — the cold snap cut the melt, and cold Julys keep snow in the bank upstream; steep-plunge analogs (median Aug 9) blended with the cold-July model (Aug 26) land here
Jul 03 opens ~Aug 12 ±16 d · cool but unusually dry July — dry wins: less rain means a faster drop
Apr 01 odds only · season outlook opened — this canyon runs on summer glacier-melt and rain, so the first dated call lands Jul 1 with real melt data in hand

Last season on the gauge (2025) — why we talk in odds

Flags mark every 550 crossing after the peak. Rain re-closes this window in 4 of 10 years — the opening is forecastable; whether it stays open is a coin the sky flips.

What goes into this call — and where to check it yourself

Flow: Stikine at Telegraph Creek (Water Survey of Canada 08CE001), 71 years of record + live · BC River Forecast Centre
Weather: Basin temp & rain (ERA5 via Open-Meteo) · 16-day forecast models · seasonal ensemble out to October
History: Every recorded season's post-opening trajectory, spliced whole into the odds curve — the 4-in-10 rain reclose risk is in the math, not a footnote
Snow: Deliberately none — we checked, it doesn't help. That finding is the forecast.

When it opened, recent years

year	opened
2015	Jul 07
2016	Jul 24
2017	Aug 03
2018	Jul 10
2019	Jul 12
2020	Sep 16
2021	Aug 01
2022	Aug 15
2023	Jul 06
2024	Aug 09
2025	Jul 31

Jul 6 to Sep 16 in one decade.

These are forecasts, not gauge readings — the river gets the last word. Check the live gauge before you burn vacation days. Seen a run come in? Tell us — every confirmation makes next year's call better.