It was a dryer than normal June across the Winnipeg River Drainage Basin.
The Lake of the Woods Control Board says, "total basin mean precipitation amounts for the month of June were very consistently between 50 and 100 mm. These amounts corresponded to a range of 11th to 32nd percentile, which is less than normal."
The Lake of the Wood sub-watershed received the most rain in the drainage basin with a total of 80 mm of rain that fell June putting it in the 32nd percentile, while the Winnipeg River sub-watershed is in the 29th percentile as 73.2 mm of rain fell.
In Kenora, 60.8 mm of rain fell in June which is well below the monthly average of 118.7 mm of precipitation we would usually see.
The warm, dry weather has been good for Lake of the Woods as in recent weeks the lake appears to have crested and is slowly dropping. Upstream of Lake of the Woods, Namakan Lake has returned to a normal summer level while Rainy Lake remains high but is dropping sharply.
The Control Board says that a return to normal operating range for Lake of the Woods could be anywhere from weeks to months away depending on precipitation.
Rainy Lake and Lake of the Woods levels remain exceptionally high, but significant reductions in level are expected for the months of July and August on these two lakes should dry conditions persist.