Thursday, March 5, 2015

Huge River Rise Coming...

One of the things I watch for at this time of the year is heavy rains that fall on top of deep snow pack up north.    A little over a week ago heavy snows fell from Dallas across Arkansas into Ky. & TN.   Earlier this week a huge surge of warm air moved northward melting most of that snow, but a band of heavy rainfall (2-3”+) soaked most of Kentucky & Tennessee before  another snowstorm yesterday blanketed the same areas from Dallas northeastward into D.C.   2 Days ago the Mississippi River stage at Cairo, IL . was falling at 28 feet (flood stage is 40’).   When I checked today their gage rose 3+ feet with a crest above 43’ coming on March 10th.   That’s a whopping rise of 15 feet.   It will take 2 weeks for that rise to reach us, but I would guess our Carrollton gage will jump from the current 7 feet to above 10+ feet provided no more heavy rains fall.   It could be a pattern setting up that will bring us river problems here in April & May much like 2 years ago?  Stay tuned!

 

In the short term, we’ve seen some exceptional temperature drops (30-40 degrees) over a few hours and could be dealing with record cold (31) Friday morning after record warmth (85 Audubon Park) on Wednesday.   Fortunately, the next 2 days look dry with filtered sunshine through high, thin clouds.  The warm up will be painfully slow with highs staying below normal/average for the next 5-7 days.   Next week’s pattern is setting up to be a rainy one for several days.

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