It's been a long weekend for watching the water ebb and flow in rivers and lakes swollen by spring runoff.  

Now, with heavy rain in the forecast the risk of flooding is rising again.

The water is still high in Ramara Township, but things have been improving.

Max Koeniger is trying to save his home from a swelling Lake St. John. The lake spilled over the bank last week and has been slowly rising every day.

“The water has come up six feet or more,” he says.

Koeniger's basement is flooded and the water surrounding his home is three feet deep in some areas

“It's the damage in the basement, it’s the walls we have to replace, and luckily we caught it in time before it reached the washing machines,” he says.

Water from the Black River is backing up into Lake St. John and causing the flooding.

Roads are submerged and in some cases people are using canoes to get around.

 But there is some relief up-stream in Washago.

“That’s the high water mark,” says.

The water has started to recede from Rob McLaren’s property. Until yesterday eight sump pumps had been running non-stop. Now only one is running.

“It got within one inch of going in my patio doors,” he says, adding he’s “definitely relieved.”

Throughout the Washago area there are signs of improved conditions. Last week a cottage was surrounded by water. Today you can see how much the water has gone down. The river has dropped 30 centimeters but the Black River is still running fast and high.

“The levels are still at 172 cubic meters per second and we need that to drop to 130 cubic meters per second so it will stop flowing into Lake St. John,” says Ramara’s Deputy Fire Chief Tony Stong.

He says flooding is expected to continue in some low lying areas. How bad it will get, however, will depend on the weather. As much as 20 millimeters of rain is expected today and tomorrow.

“There wasn't a lot of frost in the ground and hopefully the rain isn't too significant and the ground will absorb that,” Stong says. “If there is significant rain it will impact the flows into Lake St. John, unfortunately allowing it to keep increasing in size.”

And that has some people crossing their fingers and hoping the worst is over.

Depending on how much rain falls, the fire department says it could take a week for water levels to return to normal.