water levels

There are no immediate concerns about the potential of flooding in the Rainy River district this spring.

It has been a drier-than-normal winter.

Water flows into the Rainy Lake basin have been lower than normal.

Ketzel Levens of the National Weather Service in Duluth says the low flows have been persistent since last fall.

“We’ve had drought across the basin, had a really dry fall,” says Levens.

“Our stream flow, our winter precipitation have largely been below normal, and we haven’t been able to seriously make up some of those deficits that built in the fall.”

The levels of Rainy and Namakan Lakes have held stable within their Rule Curves, which identify the preferred levels throughout the year.

Alexandra Lavictoire with the Lake of the Woods Control Board Secretariat says a big indicator of a spring flood is the timing and amounts of spring rains.

“It’s really hard to say right now at the beginning of March how the spring is going to unfold,” says Lavictoire.

“The long-term forecasts are indicating that March and April don’t have any signals for below normal precipitation. But as we head into May, we can’t really tell at this point what conditions are going to be like.”

She notes that conditions last May were exceptionally dry.

Environment Canada’s long-range forecast into April identifies the potential of slightly above-normal temperatures, but gives no strong indication of whether there will be above or below normal precipitation.

The International Joint Commission’s International Rainy Lake in the Woods Watershed Board’s Water Levels Committee will use the information as it prepares to issue its spring directives to the area’s dam operators.

That is expected to be released in the coming days.