Flood risks low for Eastern Iowa as drought conditions improve

Almost a year after melting snow sent flooding down the Mississippi River, seeping into several river communities, Iowa meteorologists are anticipating little to no flood risks this spring.

Also, the state’s dry conditions are improving amid Iowa’s fourth year in a row of drought.

The spring flood risk is below normal for the Mississippi River and near to below normal for local rivers across Eastern Iowa. Factors like seasonal temperatures, precipitation, stream flows and soil moisture play into flood risks.

It has been an abnormally warm winter for Iowa and much of the Upper Midwest, senior service hydrologist Matt Wilson of the National Weather Service Quad Cities bureau said in a briefing.

That warmth has melted away much of the snowpack across the region. Minnesota and Wisconsin, for example, only hold less than a tenth of their normal snowpack.

“As opposed to last year, when that snowpack up north in the headwaters built up and continued to build all the way through early April, they really haven't been able to keep snow up there this year,” Wilson said.

No rivers in Eastern Iowa, including the Mississippi River, currently have a high chance of flooding this spring.

The Wapsipinicon River is the only Eastern Iowa river with a 50 percent chance of experiencing minor flooding and a 25 percent chance of major flooding. Some Mississippi River communities south of the Quad Cities have a 25 percent chance of minor flooding.

An accumulating snowpack — which isn’t likely — or above-average spring rain amounts could increase flood threat levels.

“It’s almost like an inverse of what we saw last year, where a big threat was the snowmelt up north,” Wilson said. “This year, it could potentially be these convective rainfall events as they occur in the March-April-May time frame.”

Drought conditions improve

Although 95 percent of Iowa still is experiencing some sort of drought, dry conditions have waned since the start of 2024.

In the first week of January, around 35 percent of the state was plagued by extreme drought. The afflicted area has since shrank about 17 percent to east-central up to northeast Iowa, according to the Thursday U.S. Drought Monitor report.

Sixty percent of the state still is experiencing moderate to severe drought conditions, and about 17 percent is experiencing abnormally dry conditions.

That improvement is thanks to January’s 1.97 inches of precipitation — more than twice the month’s normal amount, according to the latest Iowa Department of Resources water summary update. It continues the trend of above-average precipitation seen in three of the past four months. Since October 2023, Iowa has received 106 percent of its normal precipitation.

Northwest and north-central Iowa are now in stable condition under the Iowa Drought Plan. The drought warnings in other areas of the state in December have since been demoted to drought watches that are improving.

“The lack of deeply frozen soil has helped melted snow water to soak into the ground, and as a result, we have seen almost no flooding conditions,” Iowa DNR hydrology resources coordinator Tim Hall said in a statement. “We are heading in the right direction to improve conditions as we move into spring.”

Over the next two weeks, Iowa may see above-average temperatures and slightly above-normal precipitation, according to the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center. Warmer temperatures should continue through May, along with slightly above-average precipitation for the southern half of Iowa.

Drought is projected to persist in northeast Iowa, improve in southern Iowa and completely disappear along the state’s southern border.

Brittney J. Miller is the Energy & Environment Reporter for The Gazette and a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.

Comments: (319) 398-8370; brittney.miller@thegazette.com