2001 flooding in Davenport. (NWS photo)
An updated forecast shows an above-normal risk of spring flooding of the Mississippi River at the Quad Cities, though drier-than-normal conditions in recent weeks have lessened the severity of earlier predictions.
Matt Wilson, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Davenport, warns that the snowpack has been growing in the upper Mississippi River basin. “Those are areas that have received somewhere between 150 and 300% of their yearly of their average precipitation over this timeframe,” Wilson says, “and that has really all fallen as snow, and most of that pack still remains up north.”
Wilson says the risk of flooding for eastern Iowa cities like Davenport will depend on how fast that snow melts and how much rain we see this spring. He says the snowpack north, along the Mississippi River, remains concentrated and a quick melt could send a lot of water south.
Wilson says, “That snowpack remains to our north and any additional snowfall or heavier rains this spring on that snowpack will be the main determining factors and how severe our spring flooding will be.” Parts of eastern Iowa got heavy snow this past weekend, with the Cedar County town of Lowden reporting ten inches.
The Mississippi is currently running at near-normal levels, he says, which means the river can handle more water from heavy spring rains.
(By Zachary Oren Smith, Iowa Public Radio)