In different weather conditions, high spring lake levels could flood Wanaka and Queenstown - but there is no need to worry now.
The Otago Regional Council director of environmental information and science John Threlfell said while the levels of both lakes were high, they were still within their normal range for this time of year.
Lake Wakatipu is 40cm below the warning point which would trigger closer council monitoring, he said.
And while Wanaka was still a full 1.2m below its warning level, that lake was prone to rise "more rapidly".
"It behaves very differently to Wakatipu," he noted.
Wakatipu reached a higher point in early October, reaching 310.5m above sea level - just 30cm from the ORC warning level.
It had dropped since, then it refilled with the last rain that fell in the catchment.
During the storm that arrived earlier this week the Wakatipu level had risen 40cm and Wanaka rose more than a metre, but with most of the snow already gone and calm, settled weather expected for the next week, he did not think there was much likelihood of either lake encroaching into the towns.
"If we had two storms [of the same magnitude as the last one], back-to-back, there might be some concern," he said.
"We would be looking at the forecast and looking to see what rainfall was predicted. We have more monitoring available and forecasting is more accurate than in 1999 [when Wakatipu flooded].
"That was a stalled front that stayed in the area for two weeks - there is nothing like that predicted."
