Mid-day Q & A

First comment and question on the blog received today from David S:

could this be around the time where the flooding up north gets to us? i know it all crystal balls...but could we have super heavy rain...and an incredibly high crest? does the pyramid float?

I think a lot of people downstream along the Mississippi River will be wondering the same thing. We saw the combination of a wet spring and snow melt this year help the Mississippi River climb above flood stage in the Mid-South. This time around I'm not so sure. The National Weather Service recently put out a statement on their website addressing this question. The short version is that the river will remain below flood stage here in Memphis as the water moves downstream, with only the northern counties in TN experience any real effects. Could additional rain up north raise the levels higher? Absolutely. But I would guess that we would need a lot of rain here to get the Pyramid floating.

Interestingly enough, the GFS crystal ball continues to show something happening over the area around the 4th of July weekend:

This is actually for Sunday 1 p.m. on the 6th courtesy the 6z run. That's still a large thunderstorm complex over Arkansas.


Saturday the 5th could also be a very wet day across the Mid-South. I'll need to check out later runs to see if this same activity appears again. (Note: The 6z and 18z GFS model runs are usually not as reliable as the 0z and 12z.)

So to answer the question in as few words as possible, I think the river will probably stay below flood stage in Memphis, barring some terrible disaster to the north (a lot more rain) or here (tropical system stalling out over the Mid-South).

For more information on the computer models, you can go here. I'll try to find some more useful links and get them up on the right side of the page. There will probably be another update this evening.