St. Paul: Anatomy of a flood crest

It appears the Mississippi River at St. Paul is at crest Wednesday morning.

The river has held steady near 19' for the past several hours.

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Assuming the 19.1' level observed so far holds as the highest, it is the 8th highest flood of record for the Mississippi @ St. Paul.

Historical Crests for Mississippi River at St. Paul

(1) 26.40 ft on 04/16/1965

(2) 25.00 ft on 04/15/1969

(3) 23.76 ft on 04/18/2001

(4) 23.60 ft on 04/30/2001

(5) 22.90 ft on 04/13/1997

(6) 21.90 ft on 04/16/1952

(7) 19.65 ft on 06/26/1993

(8) 18.38 ft on 03/24/2010

(9) 17.90 ft on 04/16/1951

(10) 16.30 ft on 05/16/1986

Here's what today's flood crest looks like from river cams in St. Paul, Minnesota today.

Harrriet Island today: (Click all images to enlarge)

Compare today's image (above) to the shot taken Monday morning (below).

Raspberry Island today:

Shepard Road today:

Compare today's image (above) to the shot below from Monday morning taken about 48 hours ago.

Pretty interesting to watch in St. Paul, but so far thankfully relatively uneventful!

Latest AHPS river info here.

Watching our next rain/snow systems:

After a nice Wednesday it looks like our next weather system slides in Thursday. The temperature profile with the system looks to be borderline rain/snow for the metro and much of Minnesota as it passes through.

There could be a changeover to mostly snow Thursday night, and there is the potential for a slushy inch or so on mainly grassy areas for much of the metro. Best chance for 1" to 3" appears to be northeast of the Twin Cities.

Stronger system Sunday & Monday:

Forecast models appear to be coming into line for a more potent system Sunday & Monday.

Latest indications are it could be mostly rain Sunday from the metro south, with a changeover to (a few inches of ?) wet snow by Monday.

It's too early to tell how accurate the models are with this system yet, but the potential is there for a good soaker which could help rivers toward a second crest sometime later next week.

Forecasts still highly variable for rain/snow Thursday & Sunday.

Stay tuned...

PH