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Northern Utah is already a wet sponge, and the bad news is there's more water on the way.

With the region's ability to absorb more water limited, residents this weekend are facing the challenge of handling runoff from warm temperatures, followed on Sunday by snow and more warm weather to start the week.

The weather, according to the National Weather Service, will likely lead to more flooding.

The good news, at least in Box Elder County, where floods have destroyed roads, flooded basements and threatened bridges, is officials have been planning for a soggy spring.

"This is kind of a slow-moving disaster that's kind of come at us," said Mark Millett, who for the past year and a half has served as the county's emergency manager. "It's long-term. It comes and hits us then backs off and then comes again."

Millett said he has been working with county employees on a new level of preparation and awareness for natural disasters that arise.

Talk about good timing. As several of the state's northern counties brace for a weekend of rising temperatures that forecasters say will likely bring more flooding, Millett said county staff is ready to assist smaller towns in his area that are already threatened by melting snow.

Last month, residents in the city of Tremonton and elsewhere in the area watched as several feet of water from melting valley snow flooded basements and roads.

While the region still works to clean up from the past flooding, the National Weather Service has issued flood warnings for portions of five counties – Weber, Cache, Box Elder, Rich and Morgan. Residents in those areas should be prepared for flooding through Monday afternoon.

"Now we've got saturated soils in northern Utah. What will occur if we warm up again or we get a significant rain event, is we're going to have additional flooding," Brian McInerney, hydrologist with the National Weather Service, said in a video this week. "And this could continue until June perhaps."

Undeveloped portions of the county remain agricultural, and those fields are already saturated after receiving several times more precipitation than normal in January and February. The mountains nearby have far more snow than average, portending to possible flood issues that will continue through spring.

In Logan, the National Weather Service reports the city has seen two to three times the amount of normal precipitation since the start of the year.

The mountains are carrying far more than the median snowpack for this time of year. As Utah heads toward warmer months, forecasters will watch for rain and spikes in temperature like the one expected later this weekend and alert report what they expect, McInerney said.

"My role is to convey the science so they understand it, convey the certainty so they have it, then they take that info and implement their plan," he said by phone Saturday.

Emergency plans, which are in place in other counties as well, particularly help small towns and unincorporated parts of the counties, Millett said.

Brigham City, Millett said, would likely be able to handle more of an emergency than, say, Tremonton.

Millett said Saturday he hadn't yet seen flooding that's expected near the Bear River in the county's east.

"There's a good chance we may be able to avoid anything we saw a week and a half ago," Millett said.

McInerney said his office will be watching the high snowpack as the weather warms and providing alerts to county leaders to prepare.

When that happens, Millett says they will be ready.

Twitter: @TaylorWAnderson