With the start of spring, flooding is often a concern, especially in this region but that is not the case so far this year.
Lower Trent Conservation’s Janet Noyes says the snow is already gone from the local watershed and though there is still snow in northern regions of the Trent River system, the snow melt there is not likely to cause flooding issues here.
“Right now they’re actually quite concerned about filling the reservoir lakes up there. They really haven’t had that much snow and that much melt to fill the reservoir lakes. So as far as flooding, it’s really not a big issue. They’re watching to see how quickly – the problem is we get a lot of rain and it’s a really quick melt, that’s when it causes more of a flooding issue.”
Noyes says Lake Ontario is also in good shape and is currently 21 centimetres below average for this time of year.
The International Lake Ontario St. Lawrence River Board manages water levels on Lake Ontario.
“They’ve just opened the St. Lawrence Seaway this week so they had to reduce the flow out of the Seaway due to navigation now and the forecasts that they’re showing look like they’re still maintaining below average water levels right into the summer.”
A storm event anticipated to move through the area on Thursday and Friday is expected to bring about 30 millimetres of rain.
But Noyes says we need it.
“So far we’ve only had about four to five millimetres of rain for the entire month of March right now. So, we would typically get 60 to 65 millimetres of rain for an average March so we’re well below our regular precipitation level for March.”
