COLUMBIA FALLS - A Flood Warning has been issued for the Flathead River near Columbia Falls as water levels are expected to remain high throughout the week.
“You know in that 13 feet range now, looks like we’re going to go up a little over 14 feet,” said Flathead County Office of Emergency Management Spokesperson Lincoln Chute.
Chute said periods of heavy rain and high elevation snow melt is causing the river to rise.
“I mean this river comes up like this periodically, and you know at this point in time we don’t see a huge problem but we’re going to closely monitor, and we will get that information out if we see any changes,” added Chute.
Chute said homes and infrastructure along the river should see little impact if water levels stay around the forecasted 14 feet.
“The Flathead River is a fairly wide deep channel, and it does have room to kind of go laterally without affecting that,” said Chute.
Chute said now is not the time for recreation on the river, as water is extremely cold, running very fast and churning massive amounts of debris.
“I wouldn’t recommend playing in the river, rafting, anything like that, right now is not the time, we got some weather coming, the river is going to drop, it will get nice and then you can go play, but right now is not the time,” said Chute.
