The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced this week all the stored floodwaters from 2018 were evacuated from the Missouri River reservoir system. The full 16.3 million acre-feet of designated flood control storage is “ready to capture spring runoff and reduce flood risk,” said John Remus, Chief of the Corps’ Missouri River Basin Water Management Division.
Current Gavins Point Dam releases in South Dakota are 20,000 cubic feet per second and will be decreased to 17,000 cfs by next week.
As of Feb. 4, the mountain snowpack was nearly 90 percent of average at the dams controlling the flow of the river. Normally, by Feb. 1, 64 percent of the total mountain snowpack accumulation has occurred.
Mountain snowpack will continue to accumulate over the next few months and normally peaks in mid-April. To view mountain snowpack information, go to nwd-mr.usace.army.mil/rcc/reports/snow.pdf.
Current studies indicate the Missouri River navigation season will be at full service levels when the season begins on April 1 at the mouth of the river. How long the navigation season will be is to be based on the amount of water in storage July 1.
Weekly updates on basin conditions, reservoir levels and other topics of interest can be viewed at nwd-mr.usace.army.mil/rcc/reports/pdfs/weeklyupdate.pdf.
As of Friday afternoon, the National Weather Service in St. Louis showed the Missouri River was at 14.3 feet and falling over the next several days.