Predictions have Fort Madison safe from flooding...for now

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BY CHUCK VANDENBERG

PCC EDITOR

FORT MADISON - With southeast Iowa quickly recovering from moderate to severe drought conditions, all eyes are now turning to possible flooding due to the amount of rain that has occurred in the late spring in the northern part of the country.

According to Lee County Emergency Management Services Coordinator Steve Cirinna, the area should be out of the way of any heavy flooding if weather patterns hold current.

"Right now, based on National Weather Service predictions on their website, which is a 24-hour forecast, we're in a watch-and-see mode at this point," Cirinna said. "We shouldn't have any trouble based on where they are expected to crest."

He said Keokuk is predicted to crest at 16'-3" sometime Monday, July 2 in the afternoon and Burlington is predicted to crest at 17'-9", which he said were all safe river stage levels. Obviously, Burlington would crest before Keokuk.

"If things start changing and we see numbers pushing 21 feet or higher, that will cause us to look at trigger points and then I start talking to the National Weather Service to see what's going on," Cirinna said.

Other gauges up and down the river are also monitored by Cirinna so he can see who's cresting and who's not. He said areas north that feed into the Mississippi and other Iowa rivers are actually starting to recede.

"For instance, the Mississippi River in Wabasha, Minn., has crested and was headed down. Right around LaCrosse, Wisconsin is where the crest is now. But again, we're still looking at a crest next Monday, about a week out," he said. "But the issue becomes how much rain do we see over the next week. Right now we're not supposed to get anything until Saturday but in the Midwest that can change."

He also said there's the possibility of some precipitation on Thursday, with a 40% chance Saturday, and a 30% chance on Sunday and Monday.

"We're not supposed to have any rain for the next few days and allow water to get down and out of the system. Any rain down south would slow it down a little bit, but we're kind of paying closer attention to it because we're on the rise, here."

The river stage according to the National Weather Service as of 7 p.m. Tuesday night was 15.92 feet.

Cirinna said another changing dynamic is that decades ago, flooding was a concern after spring thaws, but he said the area isn't seeing that so much anymore. The floods of 1993 were in July and the flooding in 2008 was in June.

"We're kind of looking at the time frame shifting to more of a heavy repeated rain cycle that causes flooding more than the heavy snow melt. Not that that couldn't happen again, but it just seems to be how things are evolving right now."

With the ground still having some storage capacity, Cirinna said the area can absorb some more rain, but anything that comes down heavy could cause quick runoff which leads to flash flooding. He said as of June 19th the area was still in a moderate-to-severe drought condition. But the recent rains have been good but not enough to get out of the drought condition so there is capacity for ground storage of water.

"But if that ground were to get saturated any time soon we would then turn our attentions to flash flooding, especially if we get hard rain."

Burlington, environment, flash flooding, flooding, fort madison, Lee County Emergency Management Services, National Weather Service, Pen City Current, rain, Steve Cirinna

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