St. Paul Flood: Before and During photos

I saved some images off the city of St. Paul's web cams last week before the crest of the river. The river was already high at that point so some of the differences don't seem that dramatic. Also, the city has done a lot to prevent flooding in situations like this so some of what we see here is that the levees are doing their jobs.

Upper Landing Before and During Flood:
These two don't look all that different. Look though in the second photo and you can see that there is less of the levee visible.



Union Pacific Bridge - Wide Angle Before and During Flood:

The sun really messes with this camera but you can see in the second photos that the bridge supports are barely out of the water.



Union Pacific Bridge - Close-Up Before and During Flood:

Check out the bridge supports on the right hand side of the trail lift bridge. They are completely under water in the second photo.


Raspberry Island West Before and During Flood:

The most dramatic difference on the West side of Raspberry island can be seen at the building. In the first photo the sidewalk and path to the water are visible. In the second photo, the water is up to the building.



Raspberry Island East - Before and During Flood:

The sun makes this one a little hard to see but a good chunk of the east side of the island disappears under the water in the second photo.



Lambert's Landing - Before and During Flooding

Here we can see why they close the road along the river as water has covered it in the second photo. Technically the water hasn't topped the levee. I think this is a low spot and the water is probably coming up from a drain that leads to the river.


Harriet Island - Before and During Flood:
This is the most dramatic difference. Harriet Island has a lower levee than the rest of St. Paul and it is the first to flood. It is also designed to flood though so the building isn't ruined.


Harriet Island Park - During Flood
For some reason I didn't get a pre-flood shot of this one but you can see the extent of the flooding in the photo below. The building in the photos above is visible in the lower right of the image. While the park itself has flooded, you can see the water did not even come close to the tall snow covered levee in the background that protects local businesses.


~Kirk

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Latest Flood Forecast for St. Paul (3/22/11)

Yesterday the latest flood forecast came out and boy was it specific. It was updated again today with even higher numbers given the rain we're getting though interestingly the prediction shows a slightly later surge of water than they thought yesterday.

According to the graph, the Mississippi in St. Paul will officially reach flood stage at 7:00 PM on Thursday evening. This is a height of 14 feet. It will hit moderate flood stage less than 12 hours later at 7:00 pm Thursday. At 1:00 am Saturday it will have risen to 17 feet which is considered major flood stage. The highest value on the forecast thus far is 21.3 feet on Monday. We'll see what the rain and snow this week does to those numbers. They could still go up.

~Kirk

For forecasts on other rivers see the Twin Cities Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service website.

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St. Paul Flood Cam is Online

I hinted a few weeks back that the Mississippi River Flood Cam at the Science Museum of Minnesota was up and running but that the link had not been made public yet.

The 2011, A Front Road Seat for the Flood page is now online as part of the Science Museum's "Science Buzz" website.

Be sure to check out the Flood Cam with live updates on the river height. The official page shows a shot taken every hour starting on March 15th but if you want to see ice-out on the river there is an alternative page that shows one shot of the river every day at noon. This alternative page starts earlier in the season on February 4th.

~Kirk

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Updated Flood Prediction for St. Paul

I've been expecting an updated chart out of the Advanced hydrologic Prediction Service but there haven't been any new charts since February 28th. Since that's still newer than my last update let's dive into the data.

The chance of flooding is clearly up. There's now about a 98% chance of the river cresting in St. Paul at or around 20 feet. That would be in the purple "major flooding" zone. What is particularly interesting about this year's predictions is that all probabilities are in the purple zone. In other words, St. Paul is headed into the major flood stage one way or the other.

Portions of Lilydale park go under water at 14 feet, Harriet Island starts to go under at 17.5 feet and portions of Warner Road are under water at 18 feet. It looks like all of those things are a certainty this year. There's a 50% chance of reaching 25 feet and only about a 4% chance of the waters topping the 31 foot levees in St. Paul.

When will it come though?

There's a graph for that too.

Here's how to read the graph. Everything in gray is pretty much a certainty (greater than 90% probability) Blue is 50 to 90% probability so still very good. Red is the outside probabilities of 10-50%.

Using this info we can see the blue line jumps into the flood zone the week of March 28th though there's a slight chance of seeing flood stage the week before that. Moderate flooding becomes nearly a certainty the first week of April. According to this graph (which is almost three weeks old.) The highest probability of major flooding comes the second week of April.

We're getting a lot of snow melt though so we'll see if an updated forecast pushes that crest earlier. One thing to keep in mind is that St. Paul crests a lot later than other locations upstream.

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Mississippi River FloodCam 2011

I just got word that the Science Buzz team down at the Science Museum of Minnesota once again has their time lapse Flood Camera set up taking daily photos of the Mississippi River in downtown St. Paul. (The feed is live but they haven't linked to it yet on their site. I'll share the link once they make it public.) Last year the camera captured the flooding downtown as the waters rose up and covered Harriet Island. While the flooding is still a few weeks away at this point, the camera has already revealed some interesting finds.

Here's the first image taken on February 4th. Snow covers the ground and the river is covered in ice.

Eight days later, on the 12th, the river ice starts to crack and break up.

Blocks of ice move downstream for a few days and then when this photo was taken on noon on the 17th, the river is free of ice.

It will be very interesting to see what happens when the river crests. Come on back for more analysis and river flooding news or subscribe by putting your email in the box at the top right of the page. You'll automatically receive updates via email.

~Kirk

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Flood waters over Harriet Island

I took these screen shots from the Science Museum of Minnesota's Flood Cam.

The first shot is just before sunset on Sunday night. The second photo is one of the first from when the sun came up this morning.

If you look carefully you can see the water has spilled over onto Harriet Island. You can also see the Paddleford boat. They have pulled a barge in front of it so that it won't be damaged by flood debris coming down the river. Birdchick has on location photos of the river over at her blog.

~Kirk

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St. Paul Mississippi Flood Cam

Note: This page is for 2010. for the spring 2011 season click here.

The good folks at the Science Museum of Minnesota have put up a flood cam of the Mississippi River in downtown St. Paul.

I've been blogging about flood prediction in St. Paul so now we get to see what actually happens.

The camera clicks a photo every 15 minutes and automatically adds it to the slide show. The view clearly shows Harriet Island which should go under water soon. The River Forecast Center upped their predicted crest to 19.8 feet. The expected crest is currently set for Wednesday. Harriet Island goes under water at 17.5 feet. My prediction is that Harriet Island goes under water some time on Sunday night. The view Monday morning should be really interesting.

~Kirk

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Interesting Changes to Flooding Prediction in St. Paul

I've been keeping an eye on the spring river following predictions out of the North Central River Forecast Center. They issued new predictions on March 1st. I'm curious when they will update it again as we're now getting the first of the spring rains. Here's what I find interesting. Back on February 16th they issued this graph.



Now, on March 1st they issued this one.


There are some subtle but interesting differences. On the Feb 16th prediction, they estimated the chances of the river reaching minor flood stage (14 feet) to be about 90%. You can see the black line intersects the yellow flood level at the 90% mark in the top graph. The prediction for severe flood level was about 65%.

Now look again at the March 1st prediction. The chances of a minor flood have decreased down to about 82%. That's a 9% degrease. Good news right? Look at the prediction for moderate and severe flooding though on the new graph. Both have increased slightly.

I find it really interesting that the odds of minor flooding have decreased but odds for more severe have increased.

I'm guessing there may be a new prediction on Monday the 15th. Well see what happens to the numbers. I'm betting they go up what with the rain but then again an early and slow thaw may actually help decrease chances of flooding.

~Kirk

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Flooding in St. Paul this Spring?

The chart above is from the Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service with the National Weather Service. This chart is the most recent predictions for spring river levels in downtown St. Paul. This prediction was released on the 16th. The vertical values are the height of the river in feet. The horizontal values are the percentage chance of that height being attained.

The black line is the current predictions for river height based on observed conditions such as current river flow and snow pack. the blue data are the observed averages from the historical data. The first thing you notice is that no matter where you look on the chart, the observed values are higher than average.

We can see that historically there is about a 25% chance of the river reaching the yellow line which indicates a flood level of 14 feet. Based on observed conditions, there is currently a 90% chance of the Mississippi river reaching flood level at downtown St. Paul. 14 feet is considered "minor flooding" and according to the NWS, at 14 feet, "Portions of the Lilydale residential area begin to experience flooding."

Harriet Island becomes submerged under water at 17.5 feet. This is considered major flooding. It looks like there is about a 65% chance of that happening based on current conditions.

Warner road becomes impassable due to high water and the downtown airport closes at around 18 to 18.5 feet. Historically there is about an 8% chance of this happening in a given year. Current predictions for this spring are around 55%.

Of course, what will actually happen will depend a lot of what this next month brings in terms of precipitation. More snow will increase the chance of flooding as will March rains. A fast warm-up quickly melting snow and sending it to the river would increase flooding as well. It should be an interesting spring.

~Kirk

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