KENORA – Now that summer is finally here, the drier weather has begun to halt the rising floodwater along the Lake of the Woods.
While many of the rivers in the system have returned to normal water levels and flows, Rainy Lake remains very high and the dam there remains fully opened.
Due to the outflow from the Rainy Lake Dam, there is still a long period of extremely high flow of water into the Lake of the Woods, even as smaller lakes and rivers around Kenora are returning to normal levels.
However, following the record precipitation across the Rain-Lake of the Woods watershed in April and again in May, the levels of rivers and lakes around the region are still extremely high levels with many around the region settings new records by a large margin.
According to the Lake of the Woods Control Board, “the large lakes and rivers are serving as the main collectors and conveyors of the record spring runoff, much of which is still making its way downstream through the watershed. This is a natural process that will take many weeks.”
The LWCB states that it is not possible to develop a forecast for the rate of drop in the level over the long term because unpredictable weather conditions such as thunderstorms and rainfall are hard to determine.
The LWCB can use the data collected over the previous few months to provide an estimation of the upstream water supply and the hydraulics of the system.
Therefore, the LWCB Secretariat has developed reasonable scenarios for how the lake level drop might develop in the coming weeks and months. Although, these scenarios are not forecasts; they are possible outcomes if certain assumptions are correct.
A wide range of flooding is still possible for the remainder of the summer and fall.
