Rainfall and melting snow in the Midwest and a rainy weekend in much of the Southeast will keep pushing the Mississippi River higher, though no floods have been forecast.

River stages

Friday

27.2 feet

Today’s forecast

27.8 feet

Sunday’s forecast

28.8 feet

Crest forecast

34.4 feet Jan. 10

Flood stage

43 feet

At Vicksburg, stages are expected to crest at 34.4 feet on Jan. 10, according to a forecast issued by the National Weather Service’s Lower Mississippi Forecast Center. Flood stage at Vicksburg is 43 feet, but this week’s river outlook does not allow for precipitation totals between now and then, which could change the crest, Jim Fairly of the National Weather Service in Jackson said.

“It could be higher than that because of the precipitation,” Fairly said.

Stages at Vicksburg stood at 27.2 feet Friday, up a foot from Thursday’s reading. The forecast was for 27.8 feet today and 28.8 feet on Sunday. The river has been on a steady rise for about two weeks here and is still rising upstream, but declining stages on the upper river may start this weekend.

Higher stages on the Mississippi River were not a perceived problem for shipping interests such as Ergon Marine, which suspended its fleet on the Yazoo Diversion Canal for a few days in December due to rapid currents that flooded some Yazoo River tributaries. That rare event was caused by the combination of low stages on the main channel and rapid rises flowing into smaller rivers that feed the Mississippi.

“I don’t see any problems. We’re in good shape now,” said Daniel Koestler, Ergon Marine’s vice president.

Aided by late-winter snow melt in the Midwest, stages on the river at Vicksburg reached 50.9 feet in April and remained above flood stage until May 10. The mark was the third-highest ever recorded, trailing only the 51.6 feet recorded in 1973 and 56 feet in 1927.

Stages on the Mississippi River at Natchez are expected to approach 40 feet by midweek. Flood stage there is 48 feet. Stages at Baton Rouge and New Orleans were forecast higher, but below flood stage.

Locally, a cold front will bring a 90 percent chance of rain to the Vicksburg area today, with up to an inch possible and high temperatures near 70. The mercury will dip to the 40s and 50s for Monday and Tuesday, with rain chances going up again. Up to an inch of rain was predicted to fall through Monday in wide swaths of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia.

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Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com.