SARANAC LAKE — With a hefty snowpack and above-freezing temperatures expected this week, meteorologists and hydrologists are watching the melting snow and the potential rise in river levels.

Current signs point toward little to no flood risk, according to the National Weather Service’s Burlington, Vermont office, which serves northeastern New York.

Maureen Hastings, a lead meteorologist with the office, said that while the area is expected to see warmer weather than it had experienced throughout the past several weeks, the mercury isn’t anticipated to climb enough to melt enough snow to spike river levels.

“Right now, we’re not anticipating any widespread issues as far as flooding goes,” she said. “Temperatures are going to warm up but it’s not going to be overly significant and it does look like especially overnight temperatures will be dropping to near or below freezing through the week so even though we’ll be above freezing during the day, cooler temperatures at night will help slow any potential snow melt.”

On top of that, this week’s warm-up is not expected to include any significant rainfall, according to Hastings. While she couldn’t completely rule out some ice movement on the rivers, she said it was unlikely.

Gary Henry, a professional geologist and stream restoration manager with the AuSable Freshwater Center — a non-profit organization that studies the AuSable River watershed — wrote in an email to the Enterprise that he believed that flooding would not be a concern with this week’s thaw.

“Night time temps will be below freezing, and day temps aren’t too high either, so we shouldn’t see any rapid melting,” he wrote. “Higher elevations may not even get above freezing, so that also helps. This could change as the storm develops, but I’m cautiously optimistic that we won’t have any issues this week in the Ausable.”

Hastings also pointed to the nature of the snowpack. While it is abundant, she said the long-duration cold leading up to this week has kept the snowpack from “ripening” for rapid melting. Instead, the above-freezing temperatures are going to have a slower effect on the snow.

“It’s going to take a little while to warm that pack and have it actually start melting,” she said.

Hastings said this is especially the case at headwaters and higher elevation sources for rivers, where colder temperatures will further reduce any impact.

“Looking at some of our model guidance, potential snow-water equivalent loss, especially at the higher elevations, would be really minimal,” she said.

Hastings said the forecast for next week appears to favor cold temperatures returning again, bringing an end to the relatively mild weather.

“It looks like we’re going to be trending toward better chances of below-normal (temperature) conditions and that’s going to persist right through the first at least week (or) week and a half of March,” she said.

In NWS Burlington’s winter/spring flood outlook, effective from Feb. 20 to Mar. 6, the office notes that while no concerns currently exist, the thick ice that has developed over many area lakes and slower-moving sections of rivers, estimated to generally be between 5 and 15 inches in areas of persistent coverage, will have to be monitored closely as spring approaches.

“River ice is considerable across the area, though is likely reaching seasonal late-season maximum values,” the outlook stated. “While the threat of ice breakup is minimal over the next two weeks, this will have to be monitored as we head later into the late winter when the potential for more consistent thawing and break-up ice jams will exist.”