SANDPOINT — It’s been an atypical winter throughout North Idaho with high temperatures predominating and the ground sitting barren of snow for most of the season. 

Yet halfway into February, the tides appear to be turning, at least for the weekend. Temperatures in Sandpoint are expected to get as low as 27 degrees on Sunday night with an expected chance of rain or snow hovering at around 60% all weekend, according to the National Weather Service. 

With nighttime temperatures dropping below freezing and expected precipitation on the way, Daniel Ford, owner of Wintershield, is warning of potential ice dams forming across the region. 

An ice dam is formed when the hot air from a home melts snow before it’s refrozen overnight. The formation of an ice dam traps water on the roof, which can potentially cause massive damage to a home. 

“As soon as that wall is tall enough, guess what? The water is not getting off downhill. It’s actually up your roof,” Ford said. “Roof shingles are like fish scales. They lay over because water is meant to go that way. Well, now water is coming [the other] way, and so the water goes up under the shingles, into those nail holes and into your roof [and] through your walls.” 

Ford said ice dams can form on any roof in the region and that residents should be on the lookout for water beading off a roof, long icicles and water sitting around windows. 

Once the water gets inside the walls, Ford said the damage to a home can be hard to spot, but quite dangerous. Ford warned of a build-up of mold inside the home, which can cause various negative health effects, and the potential that water will damage the home’s foundation. 

“That's where the health component comes in, not to mention the catastrophic financial impact that a lot of these folks on fixed incomes,” Ford said. “Anybody who's working, they have a salary that's fixed. No one's has an extra $100,000 to fix a leaking house.” 

Ford said the best thing people can do is maintain knowledge around the problem and look over their house when temperatures fall.  

“We can avoid a lot of problems and pain and costs with a little bit of prevention,” Ford said. “I don't know anything that gets better when you ignore it, but it certainly doesn't in this case.” 

More information about ice dams and how to spot them can be found at www.weather.gov/grr/roofIceDams.