Mississippi River to top flood stage
The Mississippi River at Memphis is forecast to go above flood stage Feb. 19 and crest at 36 feet by Feb. 21 before a gradual drop over the next week.
National Weather Service data shows the river at Memphis on the rise at 29.31 feet on the river gauge after a recent increase in rainfall locally and farther north on the river.
The rise above the 34-foot flood mark on the gauge comes less than a year after the river at Memphis rose to 41.3 feet – the fourth-highest crest ever recorded on the Memphis gauge. The March 4, 2019, reading was noticeable but didn’t close any roads or lead to any sandbagging.
The 36-foot mark at Memphis means the river’s waters should be edging into the Fullen Dock area in Frayser as well as minor flooding of roads on the north side of the Loosahatchie River, a tributary of the Mississippi, near its mouth. And there could be some minor flooding of the MLK-Riverside Park Marina at McKellar Lake.
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Bill Dries
Bill Dries covers city and county government and politics. He is a native Memphian and has been a reporter for almost 50 years covering a wide variety of stories from the 1977 death of Elvis Presley and the 1978 police and fire strikes to numerous political campaigns, every county mayor and every Memphis Mayor starting with Wyeth Chandler.
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