Geoboy645 Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 I figured it was time to start this thread as we come up on the first spring flooding outlooks of the year. As of right now Spring Flooding could be a major concern across most of the sub. With an above-average snowpack with high water equivalency and deep frost depth this year could be an above average year for flooding. A quick melt by either a sharp warmup or a rainy cutter could potentially lead to March 2019 or April 1965 style flooding quite easily. Interesting thing to note that most analog years to this one pattern wise featured major flooding in the Midwest during Spring. 1965,2008, and 2011 are the most notable ones. If there is a plus it's that soil conditions aren't nearly as wet as last year and snowpack is average to below-average across the headwaters of the northern major rivers. River Basins I would particularly pay attention to this year are the Illinois, Rock, Fox (Illinois), Fox (Wisconsin), Wisconsin, Des Plaines, Wabash, Southern Cedar, Iowa and Des Moines, and Mississippi. When it comes to the Great Lakes I wouldn't be shocked if Lake Michigan-Huron starts breaking lake level records again after this spring. Especially if we get more snow to the east in Michigan. Overall this year is looking like a potentially bad one for the Midwest. TLDR: Bad flooding year possible for the Midwest. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hawkeye_wx Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 While the Des Moines to Cedar Rapids corridor has been ground zero for snow this winter, the Cedar River begins up in north-central IA into southern MN. That area has received much less snow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geoboy645 Posted February 9, 2021 Author Share Posted February 9, 2021 Yeah I know. I was thinking more of the central to southern stretches of the river downstream of say Cedar Falls. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michsnowfreak Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 In both 2014 and 2015 we had record snowpack in southeast Michigan (especially 2014) and were lucky to have a slow steady melt in the Spring with almost no rain. If melt out is gradual and without heavy rain or torch it should be OK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frostfern Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 Oh boy. I'm as excited about spring flooding as I am about getting covid-19. Cursed thread. If it's a side effect of a good spring t-storm outbreak fine. Snow melt flooding is about as exciting as hemorrhoids. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
janetjanet998 Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 Watching the IL river basin fill up with snowpack over NE IL and NW IND many of the top ten crests on the upper IL river from PIA upstream have occurred in the past 15 years with over 100 years of history Urban growth of the SW burbs the past 20 years not helping with any increased runoff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mississaugasnow Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 I live along the Grand River in Haldimand and its weird to have to follow River flooding updates (originally from the city where this wasn't really a big issue) Bad flood last year from the early January rainstorm. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/grca-flood-warning-entire-grand-river-watershed-1.5424109 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greenwald Posted February 10, 2021 Share Posted February 10, 2021 We were dealing with a moderate drought here in northeast Indiana and the lake levels are very low. Somewhere along the line we were upgraded to Abnormal but we still have a lot of storage to fill along the watersheds. With this prolonged cold the snow is piling up though and I feel like by the end of next week even more will have accumulated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CheeselandSkies Posted February 10, 2021 Share Posted February 10, 2021 7 hours ago, Geoboy645 said: ...1965,2008, and 2011 are the most notable ones... ...although not according to the current modeling per @andyhb. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A-L-E-K Posted February 10, 2021 Share Posted February 10, 2021 not really seeing any signs of a thaw imminent, the long the cold holds, the more ice jamming of rivers will compound things down the road 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frostfern Posted February 11, 2021 Share Posted February 11, 2021 22 hours ago, A-L-E-K said: not really seeing any signs of a thaw imminent, the long the cold holds, the more ice jamming of rivers will compound things down the road That was a problem briefly in 2014. 3-5" of snowpack water didn't cause any major flooding later on because the thaw was very dry. 2013 didn't have as much snowpack, but there were a few major early spring rainstorms and April was bad. It seems like it only takes one widespread 2-3" rainstorm to cause significant flooding if the ground still has frost after snowmelt. When the frost and snow is gone but little green-up has occurred it seems to only happen with two or three of those widespread 2-3" rain events in close succession. Soil is somewhat sandy here though so that helps a little when the ground isn't frozen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
janetjanet998 Posted February 11, 2021 Share Posted February 11, 2021 22 hours ago, A-L-E-K said: not really seeing any signs of a thaw imminent, the long the cold holds, the more ice jamming of rivers will compound things down the road Plus, the closer we get to spring, odds increase of a warm spell that could melt things all at once rather then gradual if this was say Jan 1st Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geoboy645 Posted February 11, 2021 Author Share Posted February 11, 2021 https://www.weather.gov/ncrfc/LMI_ROF_NFP_SpringHydroOutlook. The NCRFC just came out with their first spring flooding outlook. They are pretty much thinking the same thing when it comes to what areas are likely to flood this spring. They are definitely a little more conservative with their wording though. Which makes sense I guess considering that we are still in mid-february.What was especially interesting was the note that the SWE for the Illinois/Wisconsin snowpack is actually in the top 10 highest ever for that area. Basically if your south of the latitude of the Iowa/Minnesota state line your going to have a higher flood potential than north of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IWXwx Posted February 12, 2021 Share Posted February 12, 2021 Take it for what it's worth, but the CFSv2 is showing a signal for above normal precip in March. If that comes to fruition and we have a flip to above normal temps and an accompanying snow pack release, it could get ugly. Granted, it is also consistently showing near normal temps, but it would only take three or four days of above normal temps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frostfern Posted February 12, 2021 Share Posted February 12, 2021 All it takes is one warm sector with convection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StormfanaticInd Posted February 13, 2021 Share Posted February 13, 2021 Spring flooding is almost certain this year especially with this being a la nina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geoboy645 Posted February 14, 2021 Author Share Posted February 14, 2021 https://www.weather.gov/mkx/2021SpringFloodOutlook MKX just came out with their outlook for their CWA. Don't think I have seen them have a general above-average risk for flooding over pretty much the entire CWA in a while. Intresting to note that we are back in the 80% range for Soil moisture in some areas. Again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madwx Posted February 15, 2021 Share Posted February 15, 2021 One positive around here is that the consistent snow cover has lead to a fairly shallow frost depth. So when we do warm up the ground won’t stay frozen for long and will be able to soak up water 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
janetjanet998 Posted February 15, 2021 Share Posted February 15, 2021 This will only grow with todays system and Thursday..keep in mind even if it warms up for a brief time a lot of the melting and any rainfall will just get absorbed into the snowpack at first priming for a big release getting very worried about IL river flooding here and upstream with the upper basin and tributaries with deep snowpack even the LES isn't helping, eastern cook county used to drain into the lake, now every drop flows this way 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
janetjanet998 Posted February 18, 2021 Share Posted February 18, 2021 update : 2-18 this is getting insane active pattern to continue with more snow northern sections and rain south major OH, mid-lower MS river flooding likely Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoosier Posted February 18, 2021 Share Posted February 18, 2021 Fairly strong signal for March being wetter than average in much of the region. Southern areas will obviously thaw more quickly than farther north. Right now I'd say that thawing looks somewhat gradual with northward extent at least in the shorter term (like not suddenly blasting into the 50s/60s) but all in all, certainly potential for issues down the road. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geoboy645 Posted February 23, 2021 Author Share Posted February 23, 2021 Now that the melt looks to start over the next week it'll be very interesting seeing how the rivers respond. Fortunately it looks to initally be a slow melt which should minimize flooding at least for the moment. At least here everyday this week looks to be 30's and 40's at least at somepoint in the day. Adding some sun and you got yourselves great conditions for long slow snowmelt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Martin Posted February 23, 2021 Share Posted February 23, 2021 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
janetjanet998 Posted February 26, 2021 Share Posted February 26, 2021 3 inches along OH river the next five days...running high from snowmelt .plus very heavy rains over the TN valley, .this water can be stored in KY lake but will eventually need to be released into the OH river OH river forecast as of yesterday, crest at Cario IL 35.7 on march 4th (without most of the rain shown below) flood stage 40 record 61.7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geoboy645 Posted February 26, 2021 Author Share Posted February 26, 2021 1 hour ago, janetjanet998 said: 3 inches along OH river the next five days...running high from snowmelt .plus very heavy rains over the TN valley, .this water can be stored in KY lake but will eventually need to be released into the OH river OH river forecast as of yesterday, crest at Cario IL 35.7 on march 4th (without most of the rain shown below) flood stage 40 record 61.7 Oh boy I guess its the annual let's flood the Tennessee valley week. Right on schedule too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
janetjanet998 Posted February 26, 2021 Share Posted February 26, 2021 New crest forecast at Cario 40.5 on March 7th.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OrdIowPitMsp Posted February 26, 2021 Share Posted February 26, 2021 Unless we see a big turnaround in March/April I’m more worried about low water levels then flooding up here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StormfanaticInd Posted February 26, 2021 Share Posted February 26, 2021 Could be some heavy this weekend Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IWXwx Posted February 26, 2021 Share Posted February 26, 2021 I figured I'd put this here. I have been eyeing the Huntington County river gauges this week. I was not worried about flooding per se, but ice jams causing flooding. Yesterday afternoon, I noticed a gauge spiking on the Salamonie River. I was getting ready to go check it out when I received a call from IWX about the same thing. I took the UAV with me and caught some footage of the ice breaking up. There was a mile or so of sheet ice behind a low head dam, with chunk ice piling up behind it. I got there just as the strong current and chunk ice caused the sheet ice to break up. (apologies about You Tube degrading the video quality) I love my job. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IWXwx Posted February 26, 2021 Share Posted February 26, 2021 Here is the gauge graph Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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