The National Weather Service has released an updated spring flood outlook.

Meteorologist Jeff Zogg says two outlooks are released each season and this is the first one of 2016.

“We account for several factors such as the snowpack, the soil moisture, stream flows and so on, and we indicate the risk of spring flooding basically going forward basically for three months. The intent for this information is for people to use that for planning decisions and also situational awareness.  Just to be aware of the risk of flooding and if there’s a risk for flooding, how severe that risk is.”

The risk of minor river flooding is above to much above normal north of Interstate 80.

“We have a pretty decent snowpack along the northern part of the state, high soil moisture levels, and with the above normal temperatures we’re expecting over the next several days, we’re expecting that to lead to significant snow melt and that’s going to result in the possibility of some minor flooding at some locations.  Especially along the Des Moines River and the Raccoon River upstream of the central Iowa area.”

Fortunately, Zogg says once that snow melts, assuming we don’t get much more snow the rest of the season, the overall risk will be a little lower than the present outlook states.