Flood and Drought Update

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Based on data through 7am Saturday, the drought continues to be whittled away from east to west.
click to enlarge
Of course, flooding is occurring along the lower Missouri, middle Mississippi, and lower Illinois River at the present time. While at record level in some places, the water is currently cresting or falling along the Rock River.
AccuWeather
Currently (2:15pm CDT) AccuWeather Regional Radar shows
Moderate to heavy rain falling near the Kansas-Nebraska border moving east. There are areas of snow from eastern Nebraska to central Minnesota as well as north of Denver.

The precipitation amount forecast from 6pm this evening to 6pm Wednesday shows substantial rains from around Tulsa to near West Lafayette to Lansing and over northern Wisconsin. This rain (and snow) is unlikely to worsen the flooding although it may have the effect of retarding the rivers' fall in the region.

Comments

  1. Steve SanerApril 22, 2013 at 5:07 PM

    Mike:

    Could you explain a bit more what the PDI really means? Looking at the Wichita area, the map suggests that we need about 3in of rain in the next 4 weeks to bring the PDI index to -0.5. But what does that mean? I wouldn't think it could mean that we were "back to normal" exactly. I mean, that isn't going to be enough to bring lakes up to their "normal" levels or ground water tables to "normal". What does it mean?

    Steve

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mike SmithApril 22, 2013 at 6:52 PM

    3" of rain + the normal rain during that four weeks. So, something on the order of six inches. That much would bring local lakes to average levels.

    ReplyDelete

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