Unprecedented flooding predicted on Ohio River

[phantom power]

This week's storm system, in combination with heavy rains earlier this month, have pushed the Ohio River and Mississippi River to near-record levels near their confluence. The Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois is expected to crest at 60.5 feet on May 1. This would exceed 100-year flood stage, and be the highest flood in history, besting the 59.5' mark of 1937. Heavy rains of 10 - 15 inches have inundated the region over the past few days, and one levee breach at Black River levee near Poplar Bluff, Missouri, has resulted in the evacuation of over 500 homes. Poplar Bluff has received 15.45" of rain since Friday morning. The greatest rain gauge-measured precipitation from the storm occurred in Springdale, Arkansas, where 19.70" inches has fallen since Friday morning.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1791

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. I know at the risk of...

how many critical... err 100 year floods, have we had over the last ten years?

No a single weather even don't mean global weather change. a series of them on the other hand, are predicted by the science.

[SheilaT]

2. Even more than the flooding in

what was it, 1993, 94? I recall that the upper Mississippi remained flooded for weeks, and for a while there was not a single intact bridge across the Mississippi for several hundred miles.