Thomas Robinson | April 9th, 2020

In a recent flood forecast update, the National Weather Service predicted that sites within the Upper Mississippi River basin will have a lower risk of reaching major flood stage this spring than previously predicted. 

Dubuque, for example, saw the probability of having a major flood event drop from 51% to 37%.  Even though the decrease in flood risk is encouraging, the flood risk for Dubuque is still well above the historic probability of 12%.

The reason for this decrease in flood risk is that the bulk of spring snowmelt will have moved through the river basin by the end of March.  Even though there is improvement, the river basin still has a high risk of flooding due to the potential combination of residual snowmelt paired with above normal spring precipitation events.

One tool for Iowans concerned about floods is the recently updated Iowa Flood Information System where a statewide sensor network provides real-time information about Iowa’s waterways.