Alex Sosnowski, AccuWeather flood expert, speaks on the repeating rounds of rain and thunderstorms in June that have resulted in river flooding in the Midwest.
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00:00I want to bring in our AccuWeather flood expert, Alex Cisnowski.
00:04And you know, Alex, before we begin on what has happened and what is going to happen here,
00:10let's talk about what is ongoing in these areas across Minnesota, Iowa, and northern
00:16Missouri.
00:17Well, a number of those rivers are still at major flood stage this morning, and they're
00:22going to continue to stay at major flood stage here for the next day or so.
00:28That surge, that rain that's already occurred, that surge is working its way downstream.
00:33We're seeing significant rises now on the Mississippi, on the Missouri, the lower portion
00:37of Missouri.
00:38That's going to slowly progress in the days and, unfortunately, the next couple of weeks
00:43coming up here.
00:44So a slow-moving disaster is in progress.
00:48Unfortunately, Bernie, as you've been saying all morning, as we've been saying all morning
00:52here on AccuWeather, there's more rain coming to these places.
00:56Let's take a look at, Alex, the last 30 days.
00:59And remember, and we'll talk about the drought in a little bit, but, I mean, this is what's
01:03happened the last 30 days.
01:04You start getting into that dark green shading.
01:07You're talking about rainfall three to perhaps even four times above the historical average.
01:14Yeah, and a lot of that rain has fallen in a week's time, and that's what's pushed these
01:20rivers out of their banks, first the smaller streams and then the secondary rivers.
01:25Well, now we're starting to get the major rivers involved, too, in the whole mess.
01:28Now here's the problem, Alex.
01:29Let's take a look at future rainfall as we go through the rest of this week.
01:33Again, this is from today right through Sunday.
01:36And you know, Alex, there's always an old forecasting line we use.
01:41It rains where it wants to rain, and this is the area where we just can't get a break.
01:47Right.
01:48And if you notice here, the rain kind of goes up into South Dakota, Minnesota, where they've
01:52had the flooding already.
01:54Rivers have crested up there.
01:56They're slowly on their way down.
01:57But I think there's enough rain coming here that you may get a double crest.
02:01You may get a second rise on those rivers.
02:03Now if you look a little bit farther to the central and southern part of your screen there,
02:07that's where the surge is happening there in Iowa, where it's going to happen farther
02:13to the south there on the Mississippi and the lower portion of the Missouri.
02:17So you're getting more rain on top of that as that surge is coming in.
02:20So as I've remained concerned about, and I've seen the gauge forecasts here at the individual
02:27points come up quite a bit since last week, the original predictions there.
02:31I think that trend is going to continue.
02:32I think they're going to continue to run conservative because those models that they use to make
02:37these predictions by the National Weather Service, they don't have all this rain figured
02:40in just yet.
02:41We can see the rain coming, but that stuff hasn't worked into all of the equations that
02:46they use to figure out how much the water is going to surge in these areas.
02:50So look for those levels to push even higher than what you're seeing projected this morning.
02:55That means major flooding, it looks like, on a portion of the Mississippi, perhaps down
02:59to just north of St. Louis.
03:01And also I think the lower portion of the Missouri is probably going to have moderate
03:04flooding and significant stretch along the way in there.
03:08We're going to end with this short-term pain, the flooding, but boy oh boy, long-term gain.
03:12Take a look at this really quick, Alex.
03:14You can see that the drought has been totally eradicated across Iowa.
03:19There's where it was January 2nd.
03:21Here's where we are right now.
03:23AccuWeather Flood Expert.
03:24Yeah, go ahead.
03:25I'm sorry, Alex.
03:26That's good news.
03:27If you're not in the flood zone and you're trying to grow corn and other crops, I mean,
03:31this will certainly help at a critical time.
03:33AccuWeather Flood Expert, Alex Cisnowski.
03:35Alex, thanks for joining us on AccuWeather Early.