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.

If you want to be sure to get the latest updates and predictions be sure to sign up to receive Twin Cities Naturalist in your email inbox.

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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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Spring Flood Prediction for St. Paul

The above graph from the Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Center really impresses me. Then again, I'm a geeky kind of guy who is impressed by such things. This chart represents the latest flood prediction for Downtown St. Paul. The blue line is the average probability of reaching a given water height between 2/22/2011 and 5/23/2011. River height is on the left.

If you look at the furthest blue dot on the left you can see there is about a 98.3% chance of the river reaching 3.3 feet on an average year. Now look at the furthest black triangle to the left. The black triangles are predictions for this spring. You can see the prediction calls for about a 98% chance of the river reaching around 15 and half feet. That's 12 feet above average. Flood stage (represented by anything above the yellow line) is considered 14 feet and above so the odds of flooding in St. Paul this year is really good.

The highest the water got last spring was 18.38 ft on 03/24/2010 which was enough for the water to start to cover Harriet Island. That was the 8th highest historic crest in St. Paul. There's about an 92% chance Harriet Island will go under water again this year.

There's about a 25% chance of the river reaching a whopping 25 feet which would be outrageous and tie for the second highest crest in recorded history. This would still be just below the top of the South St. Paul right bank levy which is 26.38 feet high.

~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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St. Paul to Ash Borer: Let the Battle Begin

(photo credit: US Forest Service)

It seems like a lot of the efforts thus far in the new battle against the invasive emerald ash borer have been reactive on the part of St. Paul, Minnesota. This is completely understandable with a new invasion like this. At the end of January though, the city opened a new front in the battle and it may not be where you would expect. The heart of the Emerald Ash Borer infestation has been centered on the very westernmost part of St. Paul near the Minnesota St. Fair grounds and the University of Minnesota St. Paul campus. The announcement at the end of last month was that the city would begin cutting down trees on the far East side of the city. They will remove XXX trees in wards 5, 6 and 7. The city has almost 30,000 ash trees on boulevards alone and it is estimated that ash trees make up 30% of the tree canopy in the city. According to the city's management plan, there are around 120,000 ash trees on public lands in the city. Make no mistake. The Emerald Ash Borer being found in St. Paul is a very bad thing. The city is now trying to be proactive in containing the threat.

The current plan is to remove the oldest and unhealthiest trees in the city that would be most likely to succumb to the eventual spread of the pest. These trees will die anyhow in the next few years as the ash borer spreads so by taking them out now the city not only gets a head start on their work but they hopefully will slow the spread of the borer by taking away trees that would be of use to the pest.

The reason for cutting down old trees proactively on the opposite side of the city from where the current infestation is located is that cutting down ash trees in the infected area would simply cause the bugs to spread further faster in search of suitable trees.

Trees have already been removed in the following areas:
Wilson Avenue between White Bear Avenue and Kennard Street
Reaney Avenue between Flandrau and Germain Streets
Hoyt Avenue between White Bear Avenue and Flandrau Street
Iowa Avenue between Kennard and Hazelwood Steets
Idaho Avenue between Flandrau and Germain Streets

Trees will shortly be removed on the following streets:
Walsh Street between Maryland and Magnolia Avenues
Magnolia Avenue between Payne Avenue and Walsh Street
Lawson Avenue between Weide and Arcade Streets
3rd Street between Germain and Flandrau Streets
Atlantic Street between Gotzian and 4th Streets
3rd Street between Earl and Atlantic Streets

The city is only removing boulevard trees and not trees on private property. Time will tell how the city's strategy pans out. You can download and read the city's entire management plan online. Eagan, Blaine, Minneapolis, St. Louis Park, New Hope, Minnetonka , and Cottage Grove have all also received money to help fight the spread of the beetle.

~Kirk

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Solar House in St. Paul

I just found out about an really cool opportunity on the St. Paul campus of the University of Minnesota. The solar house designed and built by students at the U of M as part of the Solar Decathalon will be on display and open to the public September 16-18, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. The house will be located at the University of Minnesota St. Paul campus on the north side of Buford Place just east of Gortner Avenue.

According to their website, the tours are practice for the public tours the U of M team will give during the Solar Decathlon competition in Washington, D.C. in October.

You can watch a video about the solar house on their website but they do not have an embedding function. I'm a little disappointed in my alma mater on that note. While the U of M does have a youtube channel that allows embedding of video they don't have this particular video on there.

~Kirk

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Trilobite Tracks at Lilydale

Last week's geology camp yielded a number of good fossil finds at Lilydale Regional Park in St. Paul, MN. Today's example is a trace fossil and it is a new one for my collection. If you look at this piece of rock you can see small circular imprints and other marks. When I picked up the rock in the field I could see perhaps four of these impressions. The only ones I could see were the four starting on the left. When I took the piece home and cleaned off a thin layer of shale mud I found there are more like 29 impressions in the rock as well as some really fine drag marks visible in the upper left. The more I look at it, I think the area on the far right was a burrowing or resting spot. When I look with my 10x triplet loupe I can see that the impressions immediately to the left of the far right area look more scratch-like as though something had to apply more pressure to crawl up and out of the depression. Instead of being round holes as the other ones are they are more elongated.

This trace fossil is an example of a repichnia or a fossilized trackway from a walking or crawling creature. My best guess is that it is from a small trilobite, perhaps Eomonorachus intermedius or a similarly small sized trilobite. Here are some examples of other trilobite trackways.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Diplichnites.jpg
http://drydredgers.org/jack5a3.gif
http://www.trilobites.info/Diplichnites_Isotelus.jpg
http://petrifiedwoodmuseum.org/Images/TrilobiteTracks1230.jpeg

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An Unexpected Fossil

I found this small scrap of rock while teaching my Rocks and Fossils summer camp this past week. It was collected from the Decorah Shale in St. Paul. This fossil bed is a little over 400 million years old from when a shallow sea covered what is now Minnesota. More on that in a later post. The reason I had picked up this scrap was that it contains a trilobite tail. You can see it in the upper left hand corner of the photo above. It is the reddish fossil embedded in the rock. This is about half of a tail covering that shed as the trilobite grew. These shed pieces are far more common than finding the actual animal fossilized. This makes sense since each animal sheds many times the shed parts will outnumber the animals that shed them.

They are pretty cool anyhow and I usually pick them up or give them to one of the kids. I decided to keep this one for some reason and slipped it into my pocket. I later looked at it under a low power microscope and marveled at all of the interesting other bits of marine life found in the specimen. There are some brachiopod pieces, bryozoans and even a crinoid ring. One structure caught my eye under magnification. It was something I had passed over as a bit of broken shell when looking with the naked eye. In roughly the middle of the photo there is a vaguely butterfly shape structure. I've isolated it in the photo below to make it stand out more.

Under magnification I could see that while the top section was broken, the open part at the bottom was not missing. The arch-like structure is original. Whatever this was, it is supposed to be shaped like this. It is for sure not a broken shell. Not being able to make out what it could be I set it aside and went on to other tasks.

Last night I was browsing around online looking for photos of trilobite tracks and I came across the wikimedia photo library of Mark Wilson, a professor of Geology at the College of Wooster. He has a fantastic collection of geology photos uploaded to the wikimedia commons including this photo of the hypostome (mouth plate) of the trilobite Isotelus.


As soon as I saw that shape I knew it was very similar to what I had seen earlier in my specimen. Frustratingly, I had left the sample at work so I had to wait to compare. I did a restoration photo in photoshop tonight since parts are missing and they are symmetrical. Here's a slightly more complete view of the one I found with the corresponding parts from the other side added back in. You can see the similarity in shape but it is not the same. I think this is indeed a trilobite hypostome but perhaps from a different species. My sample is 15mm across total whereas the above one is about 85mm across.
I don't know what species of trilobite this is from. There are three species listed as most commonly found at the Lilydale site. It seems the size would be most appropriate for Bumastoides milleri.

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