Moving farm equipment to higher, drier ground was the goal for farmers Doug Jeter and Tom McKnight Monday as record crest forecasts for the Mississippi River moved higher and later.

“There’s not going to be anything left,” Jeter said as the men drove tractors and other equipment from the 400 acres of land they farm in the Chickasaw area north of Vicksburg to higher ground along North Washington Street. “This is going to be worse than 1973.”

The river stood at 39.6 feet in Vicksburg this morning, up four-tenths of a foot since Monday. River forecasters late Monday predicted the river will reach 53.5 feet by May 18, a foot higher and five days later than was forecast earlier in the day. The river’s second crest at Vicksburg this spring would top the 1937 level of 53.2 feet.

In 2008, the river topped out at 50.9 feet, the highest since 1973 when it reached 51.6 feet. The benchmark 1927 flood reached 56.2 feet on today’s gauges and 62 feet had levees held.

Snow melt from the upper Midwest is a contributor to flooding on the Lower Mississippi River, as it has been during high water in Vicksburg in three of the last four years, said Marty Pope, senior service hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Jackson.

“It’s just getting downriver now, north of St. Louis,” Pope said.

Two to 5 inches of rain are forecast over parts of southern Arkansas and western Tennessee through Wednesday, adding to a “prolonged event” through current crest dates for river recording stations in Mississippi, Pope said. About 10 inches of rain in southern Missouri have swollen the Black River and have the Army Corps of Engineers considering breaching a levee on the Black River to reduce water flowing to the Mississippi.

Crews with the Vicksburg Sewer Department closed drain valves at eight sites along the city’s flood wall by midday Monday, the second time this spring they’ve been closed. Logs used as barricades in past floods at various points will be employed to hold the wall when crest predictions approach 45.2 feet, department supervisor Willie McCroy said. Low-lying Chickasaw, Ziegler and Laney Camp roads are expected to be overtaken by the first signs of high water and will be closed by week’s end, Warren County Road Manager Richard Winans said.

No roads in the city have been closed. Jackson Lane, in Kings, usually becomes impassible when stages hit the 43-foot local flood stage.

Restrictions issued Monday by the U.S. Coast Guard limit transit through river bridges in Vicksburg, Greenville and Memphis to daylight hours, unless tows are less than 110 feet wide and are pushed with a 280-horsepower vessel. No size- or time-related limits were placed on northbound tows, but they must maintain at least 3 mph for two miles leading up to the Vicksburg and Memphis bridges, or either be assisted upriver or drop barges from the tow to meet the speed.

Four barge strikes to bridge support piers were reported on the Lower Mississippi between March 20 and March 30, two in Vicksburg. The second hit, on March 23, involved a 30-barge tow that broke apart after slamming both bridges. One barge was lodged below Interstate 20 for 22 days before crews contracted by the Coast Guard lifted it from the water and hauled it to the Port of Vicksburg.

Gates at the Steele Bayou Control Structure on Mississippi 465 north of Vicksburg were closed Monday, said Wayland Hill, civil engineering technician with Army Corps Water Control Division in Vicksburg. The land side water level was at 87.1 feet this morning, up two-tenths, and the river side was at 87.3 feet, up four-tenths. The gates remain closed until the river side stage is lower than the level in the 4,093-square-mile Yazoo Backwater Area. Crests are expected Wednesday on the land side near 91 feet and 103 feet on the river side around May 18. Low-lying crops go under at about 86 feet.