It's still a bit early to be casting an eye on the mountains to forecast what we can expect for runoff this spring.

Jason Penner, a Public Affairs Officer with Alberta Environment says it's been a bit of a different winter than usual.

"It's right with-in the normal range. This was a bit of a different year where we had a pretty fast start to the season as far as snowfall goes in the mountains, a lot of snow in October, November and December, things kind of trailed off in January and February's actually been pretty light for snow,"  he says. "We were temporarily a little bit above the normal range in the early part of winter but as of right now it's right where it should be."

Penner says generally it's been the same from the south end of the province all the way to Jasper.

He says rain has a much bigger impact of the potential for flooding than the snow pack does.

"As far as things like flood risk and how that translates, it's important to remember that flood risk in Alberta is really driven by rain so snow packs, it's a factor, but it's not really what drives flooding," Penner says. "Rain on snow certainly makes the situation worse but without heavy rain we're not going to see a flood.

He says the rain on the snow adds to the river system in a short amount of time but it's still the rain in late May and June that is more relevant and plays a bigger role.