Expect a drop in the level of the Winnipeg River later this week.

The Lake of the Woods Control Board says the turbines at the Norman Dam and the Kenora Powerhouse will be shut down on Thursday.

Ontario Hydro is conducting a full day outage that will result in a temporary disconnection of those dams from the grid.

During the outage, water will not pass through the turbines and will mean a drop in the Winnipeg River by 15 to 17 centimeters and lower amounts down the river.

To limit the effect of the outage on river levels, the Control Board has directed the dam operators to add flow through the log sluices at the Norman Dam (currently all log sluices are fully closed).

Residents are reminded river levels will fluctuate before, during and after the outage and it may cause the ice on the river to shift.