As spring approaches, officials from Minnesota to New Orleans are eyeing Mississippi River levees—already lapped by higher-than-normal water levels—and bracing for likely floods.
“There is an above-normal probability of major flooding on the Mississippi River this year, all the way up to Minnesota, but especially north of St. Louis,” says Bill Frederick, National Weather Service (NWS) meteorologist and liaison with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Mississippi Valley Division.