{"id":515199,"date":"2026-03-05T04:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T04:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/515199\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T04:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T04:13:09","slug":"quebecs-warmer-temperatures-in-coming-days-could-bring-ice-jams-floods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/515199\/","title":{"rendered":"Quebec’s warmer temperatures in coming days could bring ice jams, floods"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Flood forecasters in Quebec say warmer temperatures in the next two weeks could lead to localized flooding across the province.<\/p>\n

“Floods can occur just about any time during the winter. All you need is a warm period,” said Alain Rousseau, a professor at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique\u00a0(INRS) in Quebec City. <\/p>\n

“If it’s warm enough throughout several days, then you can have ice jams, and ice jams can create floods.”<\/p>\n

Michel Bara\u00ebr, a professor at Montreal’s \u00c9cole de technologie sup\u00e9rieure, said colder than normal temperatures in December, January and February increase the risk, noting lakes and rivers have thick ice cover these days.<\/p>\n

“The ice is really strong. It takes more energy to break it, and it breaks in huge pieces instead of small,” he said.<\/p>\n

“These big blocks can be jammed by a bridge or a turn in the river, and then they might accumulate, collapsing on each other and creating a kind of dam,” Bara\u00ebr said, adding these kinds of dams can cause “a lot of damage.” <\/p>\n

The provincial website<\/a> that tracks water levels said Wednesday there were no floods currently reported anywhere in the province.<\/p>\n

But Bara\u00ebr said temperatures forecast for the next 10 days will be warm enough to start melting some of that thick ice.<\/p>\n

“We’re talking about five to six days of positive temperatures reaching 10 C or more in the day, but also not freezing overnight,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I’m going to follow what happens because there is a risk of winter flooding.”<\/p>\n

Spring flood risk lower<\/p>\n

Both experts said that more traditional spring flooding caused by snow melt depends on a number of factors and is difficult to predict.<\/p>\n

But they said there’s no red flags so far.<\/p>\n

“There’s no particular worry regarding the amount of water we have in the snow,” Bara\u00ebr said. <\/p>\n

Rousseau agrees. <\/p>\n

“I would say it’s a below-average year that we’ve been having,” he said.<\/p>\n

Bara\u00ebr said one positive aspect of winter flooding can be that it reduces the likelihood of intense flooding in spring.<\/p>\n

“If this episode is intense in March, this water is no longer going to be available in spring, so it shouldn’t influence too much the floods we get then,” he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-515199","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}