The New Brunswick River Watch campaign won't officially begin until next week, but provincial EMO is already tracking four ice jams on four different rivers.
There have already been early reports of flooding and road washouts across the Maritimes over the p ast few weeks.
It's been a record-breaking winter on Fredericton's riverbank, with the latest freeze-up the St. John River has ever seen since recordkeeping began 192 years ago.
“We see the freeze-up of the St. John River at Fredericton is taking place later on and the actual breakup of the ice is taking place sooner,” said Claude Côté of Environment Canada
People who watched the river in Fredericton over the winter say the ice was never that thick, even when it was frozen.
“I wouldn’t even take a chance going halfway out there,” said one local resident.
Ice fishermen in southern New Brunswick have until the end of the weekend to remove shelters. It’s a deadline that in the past wasn't until early April.
The ice in many areas can no longer be trusted.
“It’s a horrible season,” said Greg McCallum of New Brunswick EMO. “It may look like solid ice, but we no longer have confidence that it’s safe to walk on or snowmobile across.”
Predicting the flood risk over the next few weeks is difficult as a change in the weather can change everything.
A week of record-breaking temperatures in the 20s nearly five years ago led to devastating ice jams in Perth-Andover and Tobique First Nation a few days later.
While plenty of snow has already melted, portions of northeastern New Brunswick still have a ways to go, with equivalent of 200 millimetres of snow on the ground.
As for the River Watch campaign, there’s no official end date scheduled as it will depend on when all the ice is gone and water levels go down.
The campaign ran over an eight-week period in 2016, ending on May 11.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Nick Moore.
