A year later, the Mighty Mississippi looks much more tame

Published 12:13 am Sunday, April 22, 2012

The Mississippi River has flowed peacefully past Vicksburg’s picturesque riverfront this spring, in stark contrast compared to last year’s historic flood that began a year ago this week.

Its depth at the city gauge was 17.8 feet Saturday night, down another 0.4 foot and 20.2 feet lower than a year ago today. It’s the polar opposite of that time last year, when Vicksburg was on the cusp of a slow-moving natural disaster that drew the nation’s attention.

While the Southwest and Southeast United States experienced harsh drought, rainfall from the Lower Mississippi Valley to the Northeast was 200 to 400 percent above normal — a spike that reached more than 800 percent above normal from April 23 to May 7 across parts of the Ohio, White and mid-Mississippi River valleys. On top of that, more than 20 to 40 inches of snow from eastern Montana to Maine had begun to melt. In March the river topped flood stage at Vicksburg, 43 feet, and by the end of the month was at 43.3 feet, before falling off about 7 feet.

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In mid-April, the real climb began.

“The river was already high and a lot of water was in the system already,” said Marty Pope, senior service hydrologist for the National Weather Service in Jackson. “All that came together — the perfect storm, really,”