Towns along the Mississippi River and its tributaries should brace for the prospect of potentially serious flooding this spring, in large part due to an unusually snowy winter to the north.
The National Weather Service office in suburban St. Louis on Friday released its spring flood outlook for eastern Missouri and a portion of southern Illinois. The outlook cites a high risk of major flooding along the Mississippi, Missouri and Illinois rivers.
Hydrologist Mark Fuchs says snowpack and soil moisture levels are unusually high in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa. As that snow melts when the weather warms, much of the water ends up in the Mississippi and the rivers that feed into it.
Fuchs says that even an average amount of spring rain could cause major flooding.
