The Mississippi River is still forecast to top out at 42 feet, a foot below flood stage at Vicksburg, but the predicted day has been moved back from Saturday to Monday.

“Memphis and Helena kept on rising for about two or three days longer than we thought it would,” said U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Water Control Division Civil Engineering Technician Waylon Hill.

As of this morning, the river was running at 40.3 feet at Vicksburg, a rise of 0.7 feet in a 24-hour period. Helena was nearing its crest Thursday evening, and Arkansas City is forecast to crest Saturday morning, according to the Lower Mississippi River Forecast Center in Slidell, La.

Beginning next week, however, the river is forecast to make another slight rise farther up the river at Cairo, Ill. That means the river likely will stay high — though below flood stage — at Vicksburg for at least another week, which could prolong the closure of the Steel Bayou gates.

Located off Mississippi 465 north of Vicksburg, Steel Bayou is the lone drainage point for the 4,093-square-miles of levee-locked forest and cropland known as the Yazoo Backwater Area. Its gates were forced closed by the rising Mississippi River on May 6, and they will remain closed until the river recedes below the water stage inside the backwater area.

As of this morning, Steel Bayou was holding 4.4 feet of water out of the backwater area, with the landside water stage measuring 83.4 feet and the riverside 87.8 feet.

Hill speculated the gates will have to remain closed until at least the end of May and possibly the first week of June, depending on rainfall over the backwater area.

At 42 feet, the river will have little effect in the city and county, with only a handful of low-lying roads going underwater in places.