FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – As we head into the holiday weekend with warmer temperatures, some are concerned a melting snowpack could come flowing down into the valley making already bad flooding even worse.

“I would say the flood risk is actually pretty low for this weekend, I wouldn’t be too concerned about the flooding yet. Yet is the keyword,” said Andy Bollenbacher, a Meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Hanford.

Bollenbacher says it’s going to take more than a couple of days of 80-degree weather.

“Usually we need an extended amount of hot weather like 95 degrees for several days for peak flows to occur from snowmelt,” Bollenbacher added. 

He says it really comes down to several factors before runoff and flooding become significant in the valley.

“Snowpack temp plays a big role, the minimum temps at night play a big role and of course, the daytime high temps play a big role so there’s a few moving parts here but the resiliency is there at least for now,” said Bollenbacher.  

Experts say if the temperatures at night stay at 33 degrees the snow will remain solid. We also need a good amount of sunlight to hit the snow and a solid stretch of 90 degrees.

“As we get later into the season into May and June we’ll start to get faster snow melt because we’re getting longer days, more sunlight coming in and melting the snow,” said Roger Bales.

But they say things could change in three or four weeks from now as we get later into spring.

Professor Roger Bales with UC Merced says peak snowmelt tends to happen mid-May through mid-June but it’s very different across elevations.

“If you go up to someplace like shaver lake they may or may not be getting down to freezing at night so the snow would be melting there faster than I would say higher up at hunting lake where it may still be getting down below freezing at night,” said Bales.

And while many are looking forward to enjoying the Easter weekend with warmer weather experts are reminding people to stay out of the rivers.

“Is the flooding risk going to be really high for this weekend, no. But at the same time, it gets like 80 to 83 degrees and you’re thinking “Hey I wanna cool off in the river” Just know there’s going to be extremely swift currents in those rivers and it can make going into those rivers extremely dangerous if not deadly,” said Bollenbacher.