Flooding in cottage country appears to have peaked

The flooding that has left seven central Ontario cottage-country communities in a state of emergency appears to have peaked, though water levels remain higher than they have been in recent memory.

Jolanta Kowalski, a spokesperson for Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources, said that water levels appear to be higher than they have been in decades, in some cases.

"My understanding is that this is record levels in a number of locations," she said. "They're calling it the one in a 100 year type flood."

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In Bracebridge, Ont., water has washed out roads and even cut off some neighbourhoods, but the town has not had to force people to leave their homes.

"We’ve been very fortunate that people have made decisions on their own to leave when it became clear that things were going to get very uncomfortable for them," Bracebridge Mayor Graydon Smith told CBC News.

In Huntsville, Ont., where dozens of residents were forced to leave their homes on the weekend, the north and south branches of the swollen Muskoka River peaked overnight.

But the town’s chief administrative officer, John Sisson, said the water levels on the river are unlikely to drop for another few days.

"These are just anecdotally exceeding anything that people have seen over the past number of years," he said.

Huntsville and Kawartha Lakes appeared to be the hardest hit after the weekend, said CBC's meteorologist Jay Scotland. The good news is that Mother Nature is not adding to that, he said.

Dry weather is expected for the next 48 hours, said Scotland. Tuesday night, cottage country may face another 10 mm of snow.