The Essex Region Conservation Authority is monitoring a storm system heading toward Windsor-Essex and whether it's going to impact the frozen waterways across the region.
The forecast is calling for rain on Thursday with the potential for 10 to 15 millimetres during the afternoon and into the evening.
ERCA Chief Administrative Officer Tim Byrne told AM800's The Shift with Patty Handysides that they're hoping for a very measured rainfall but will be watching the runoff and how it impacts the ice-covered rivers and canals.
Byrne says we're fortunate that lake levels are as low as they have been, so the ice surface is still sitting fairly low in the floodplains and flood-prone areas, which provides some cushion.
However, he notes that the ice in places like the Puce River is frozen right down to the river bottom at the sandbar locations, which could be a problem if there's a sustained rain.
Byrne says they have reached out to a public works representative to give them notice about the ice situation on the rivers and canals.
"Just to give consideration to it, it's been many years since we've done this; I think about 15 years since we've had to go in and physically rupture the ice surfaces to encourage an ice breakup occurring at the lake. We won't know the need for that until probably Friday," he says.
Byrne says how much rain we receive and how quickly we receive it will dictate the impact on the ice or ice breakup.
"The ice surface is sitting low in those channels; that's good. But the ice thickness is frozen right to the bottom; that's bad. As rain falls and the temperature increases, the rate at which that ice starts to rot and break up is going to determine the capability or the capacity to create ice jamming," he says.
Byrne adds we're fortunate that we went through a mild trend because the snowpack is mostly gone, which removes the water equivalent to worry about when it comes to flooding concerns.