By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Flooding might well to returning to northwest Missouri, though the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is downplaying how severe this late summer, early fall flooding will be.
Torrential rain in the upper Missouri River Basin has filled the six reservoirs upstream on the Missouri River. The Corps has reduced water releases from Gavins Point Dam, but only for a while. Releases have dropped from 70,000 cubic feet per second to 60,000, but then will be raised to 80,000 well into October.
National Weather Service Hydrologist Kevin Low says the forecast for the final three months of the year is about twice the average rainfall.
“Our upper basin runoff forecast for 2019 is 58.8 million-acre feet, more than 30 million-acre feet more than the long-term average of 25.3,” Low tells a conference call hosted by the Corps of Engineers.
The Army Corps of Engineers Mike Dulin in the Kansas City office says the Corps doesn’t expect the renewed flooding to do the damage the mid-March and late May floods did.
“We continue to monitor the Missouri River after last week’s torrential rainfall in the Dakotas,” Dulin says. “Based on National Weather Service forecast information, we anticipate the crest to reach Rulo, Nebraska this Saturday into Sunday and could peak at a stage around 22 feet. While no levees are expected to overtop, levees that were previously breached during the March flood event could see some floodwaters move back into the bottoms as the crest passes.”
The National Weather Service reports the Missouri River at St. Joseph rose to 18.2 feet this morning and is expected to crest at 21.2 feet Monday and Tuesday. Upstream, at Rulo, Nebraska the Missouri River topped just over 20 feet and is expected to crest at 22.2 feet this weekend.
Missouri River Basin Water Management Director John Remus says water releases at Gavins Point will remain high for a while.
“We don’t have an exact date on that, but it will be well into October,” Remus says.
Remus says the Corps hopes to manage releases from the upstream dams in such a way as to return to normal on December the first.
“The plan is to cut down releases. Our plan is to get down to where we need to be for our winter evacuation by the first part of December,” Remus says. “If we do that, then we would not necessarily have to release higher flows coming out of Gavins Point.”
Corps officials say they are attempting to deal with rainfall in northern Nebraska and the Dakotas that has exceeded 400% of normal the past two weeks.