Mississippi River | Joe Spake's Blog

Disaster sells, obviously

Four of the most read posts on Joe Spake’s Weblog in 2011 were directly related to this year’s record flooding on the Mississippi River from the Memphis perspective. Interestingly the 6th most read post, about the Memphis ice storm of 1994, was written in January of 2010, and has been read consistently ever since (Maybe I accidentally worked some SEO magic.) Here are the Joe Spake’s Weblog Top 10 for 2011:

1. Mississippi River flooding- You ain’t seen nothing yet (April 4, 2011) – The water was high in April, but not nearly as high as it would be in May.

2. Flood Stage (April 26, 2011) – Actually the Mississippi River rose over 14 feet higher than the official “flood stage”.

3. NOAA raises Memphis flood crest prediction to 48 feet (May 2, 2011)

4. Why I am not following you back on Twitter (June 19, 2011) – It seems that everyone wants to get involved in Twitter, but few want to put forth the effort to engage. Think back to how much Twitter has been in the news, or actually shaped news in 2011. The growth of the 140 character messaging system will continue.

5. Quick guide to Mississippi River Conditions (January 31, 2011) – Written before the magnitude of the flood was anticipated.

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Flood Stage

Posted by Joe Spake in Uncategorized on December 11, 2011

Mississippi River has risen over Arkansas bank

In January I wrote a Quick Guide to Mississippi River Conditions. I noticed in the Weather Service’s river stage RSS feed that the Mississippi River at Memphis is right at flood stage, +34 feet on the Memphis guage; 34.3 feet, to be more precise. Looking west from Downtown Memphis, you can understand why they call it flood stage. the Arkansas flood plane is covered all the way to the levees, and the river seems miles wide. This is not the highest level the river can reach. The record flood level was 48.7 feet during the Great Flood of 1937, over 14 feet higher than today’s stage.