The 2019 Spring Flooding Thread - Includes Links To River Gauges Maps

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March Spring Storm in Midwest Causing Major, Ongoing Issues for Ranchers
Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, Dakotas among the hardest hit

Daily information on ALL the Missouri River, and tributaries, dams and release rates. Apparently only updated once a day unfortunately.

Gavins Point Dam has actually dropped .17' since yesterday since they ramped up the release rate.
[link to www.nwd-mr.usace.army.mil]

Upstream inflows in Wyoming and Montana looks nothing like they did during the flood events of 2011, MUCH lower, at least for the moment, but the snow melt has NOT started up there yet.

In 2011 the snow melt in the upper watershed was compounded by rain rain and more rain hitting the watershed which not only resulted in a massive rain event run off but also the fast melting of a much heavier than normal snow pack.

So far the flooding is limited to the middle stretches of the Missouri River due to heavy rain events down in the middle section of the river, NOT the upriver watershed.

[link to www.nwd-mr.usace.army.mil]

Item of note ... ALL the upstream Dams are at virtual FULL CAPCITY ALREADY per the Army Corp of Engineers report, though they DO have flood control capacity remaining. IF a large rain event would hit the upstream watershed, during the early snow melt season a repeat of the 2011 crisis could occur again since those upstream dams would quickly go to full flood control capacity.

Current upstream releases coming down towards Nebraska are only totalling about 10,000 cf/s ... in 2011 they got up to the 90,000 cf/s range at their worst as I recall (without looking), and were at the 50,000-70,000 cf/s range for literally months.

Pray that no large rain long duration event occurs this year in the upper watershed ... if one does it could cause a repeat of 2011 AND again put the riskiest dams that are upstream back at risk.

For those of you who don't pay attention to such things several of the largest impoundment of water lake/reservoirs on the entire North American Continent are held back by those 5 main dams on the upper Missouri River ... if ANY one of those 5 would fail one would see massive flooding all the way down the Missouri River AND the Mississippi River to New Orleans.

Rescues, evacuations as floodwaters breach levees in Midwest
By Margery A. Beck
"OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Authorities were using boats and large vehicles on Saturday to rescue and evacuate residents in parts of the Midwest where a recent deluge of rainwater and snowmelt was sent pouring over frozen ground, overwhelming creeks and rivers, and killing at least one person.
Rescue efforts in eastern Nebraska were hampered by reports of levee breaches and washouts of bridges and roads, including part of Nebraska Highway 92, leading in and out of southwest Omaha. Authorities confirmed that a bridge on that highway that crosses the Elkhorn River had been washed out Saturday. In Freemont, west of Omaha, the Dodge County Sheriff’s Office issued a mandatory evacuation for some residents after floodwaters broke through a levee along the Platte River. And in Mills County, Iowa, authorities ordered people in some rural areas to evacuate after the Missouri River overtopped levees.
The flooding followed days of snow and rain — record-setting, in some places — that swept through the West and Midwest. The deluge pushed some waterways, including the Missouri River, to record levels in Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota. The flooding was the worst in nearly a decade in places.
[link to apnews.com (secure)]

Current river gauge status from NOAA

[link to water.weather.gov (secure)]

8987 total gauges

Show all locations in flood (350)

Gauges Above Major Flood Stage 37 Gauges: Major Flooding
Gauges Above Moderate Flood Stage 78 Gauges: Moderate Flooding
Flood Gauges 235 Gauges: Minor Flooding
Action Gauges 291 Gauges: Near Flood Stage

Normal Gauges 5079 Gauges: No Flooding

Flood Category Not Defined 2495 Flood Category Not Defined
At or Below Low Water Threshold 6 At or Below Low Water Threshold
Gauges Are Not Current 608 Gauges: Observations Are Not Current
Gauges out of servie 158 Gauges: Out of Service

yes i dreamt of it

gonna get worse

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Niobrara dam destroyed, Spencer NE

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[link to www.nytimes.com (secure)] 25 States Are at Risk of Serious Flooding This Spring, U.S. Forecast Says (John Schwartz does good work there)

Nearly two-thirds of the lower 48 states will have an elevated risk of some flooding from now until May, and 25 states could experience “major or moderate flooding,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“The flooding this year could be worse than anything we’ve seen in recent years, even worse than the historic floods of 1993 and 2011,” said Mary C. Erickson, deputy director of the National Weather Service, in a conference call with reporters. The major flooding this month in Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa and elsewhere is “a preview of what we expect throughout the rest of the spring,” she said.

Some 13 million people could be exposed to major flooding, making this a “potentially unprecedented” flood season, said Edward Clark, director of NOAA’s National Water Center.

The agency’s scientists also predicted that the chemical runoff from the rains would cause above-average hypoxia conditions — “dead zones” of water with low oxygen caused by nutrient pollution that can kill fish and other marine life — in the Gulf of Mexico and Chesapeake Bay.

More rainfall in the Midwest is a predictable consequence of climate change, according to the most recent National Climate Assessment, which was produced last year by 13 federal agencies. A warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, which comes down as precipitation.

The current flooding in the Missouri River basin and beyond has been caused in part by heavy rains, but has been further complicated by other factors, like frozen ground that kept water from being absorbed.

[link to www.youtube.com (secure)]

Epic Economist on the recent flooding.