Bracing for flooding on Ottawa River
Posted Apr 17, 2019 10:31:00 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Rain and melting snow are expected to conspire to raise the level of the Ottawa River to the same level as that of April, 2017.
Up to 50 millimetres of rain is in the forecast, Wednesday night through Sunday, with the bulk of it — 25 to 30 millimetres — predicted to fall on Friday.
“A lot of ground that is frozen will have a really tough time absorbing all that water,” said Jill Taylor, 1310 NEWS meteorologist. “So yeah, it's going to be very, very wet.”
Making matters worse, the current snowpack is about twice its normal depth for this time of year, throughout much of the Ottawa River's floodplain, according to the Ottawa River Regulation Planning Board.
While the planning board does not expect flooding like we saw in May 2017, at the peak of the floods, it does expect the river to exceed minor flood levels in flood-prone areas over the Easter weekend, from Lake Coulonge all the way downstream to Montreal.
The Ville de Gatineau is preparing for any potential flooding and will provide sandbags at multiple locations, beginning at 1 p.m., Wednesday.
The Mississippi River is under a flood warning, while a flood watch is in effect for the Rideau River.
