With the warmer-than-usual heat running out of snow to melt, the worst of this year's spring freshet is over for Prince George, according to the head of the River Forecast Centre.
"We're thinking that from this point that snow melt risk is gone for the Fraser upstream at Prince George," David Campbell said Monday during a teleconference with provincial media.
As of Monday afternoon, the Fraser was 8.56 metres deep at South Fort George, maintaining a downward trend after getting as high as 9.028 on Saturday morning.
That was still below the peak of 9.14 metres reached on May 17 shortly, which in turn was still below the 9.4-metre level at which flooding begins.
An evacuation alert for homes along Farrell Street remained in place as of Tuesday afternoon as did gabion diking installed shortly after the alert was issued May 15 when the hydrometric meter at South Fort George climbed steadily towards nine metres.
The island at Cottonwood Island Park also remained closed as of Monday afternoon as did the Heritage River Trail from the canoe launch to Taylor Drive.
Heading into the weekend, Campbell said there was concern the Fraser's level would bounce back up to the level seen when the alert was first issued.
"But that didn't happen, it stayed at about the nine metre mark," Campbell said.
He said there is no snow left in the 1,400-1,600 metre elevation range and 60 to 70 per cent melted at the 1,700-1,800 metre level in the upper Fraser basin.
There is one wild card - significant rain could reverse the trend.
"Certainly the upper Fraser is quite flashy so it can respond to that," Campbell said.
Environment Canada is forecasting chances of showers ranging from 40 to 60 per cent for the rest of the week but not much more than that. Temperatures are expected to drop slightly below the norms for this time of year.
