Runoff from the snowpack in the mountains can have a big impact on river levels in the spring and provincial crews are out collecting measurements to help river forecasters assess the potential flood risks.

Technicians from Alberta Environment started visiting 35 sites in the Bow River Basin in November and will continue to take measurements of the snowpack until the end of May.

Kate Forbes and Jon Pedlar will spend the next three days taking snow samples from Kananaskis Country to Lake Louise.

“For a lot of our mountain sites that we're looking at today they're going to still continue to go for another  four  to six weeks just depending on the weather before they start melting out, and then once that melt out happens, it happens pretty quickly,” said Jon Pedlar, Meteorological Specialist.

The pair work as a team to measure and record the depth of the snow and weigh samples to help them calculate the snow’s water equivalent.

“Definitely been a slow snow year. We're seeing values of, this site is 80 percent of average, Cut Head Lake was 74 percent and that's kind of what we've seen especially in the Banff area,” said Pedlar.

So far, samples are showing amounts 70 percent on average near Banff and up to 90 percent in Kananaskis Country.

It has been a mild winter and crews say right now the snowpack is a little low but it’s not a particularly dry year even though it may be brown in the city.

“You always get that different perspective, I'm a skier, so it's been not a great ski year, and we are below average, but it's not been maybe as much as a lot of people are thinking,” said Pedlar. “The snowpack will still build at our higher elevation sites, snowpack’s still going to build for another month or so.”

The data will be used to help determine this year’s runoff, which is important for major rivers where reservoirs store water supplies for irrigation, hydroelectricity and community needs.

In 2013, the year of the floods, the snowpack was sitting at 110 percent of average in places.

For more information on the Water Supply Outlook, click HERE.

(With files from Kevin Fleming)