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Mississippi Cresting at LeClaire & Quad Cities

View of a Davenport temporary flood wall looking east from the skybridge
Michelle O'Neill
/
WVIK News
View of a Davenport temporary flood wall looking east from the skybridge

Over the weekend, the Mississippi River crested upstream. And now (Monday) it's cresting in LeClaire and the Quad Cities.

The unofficial crest at Lock 15 is 21.51 feet, or 6.51 feet above flood stage. That's unofficial and surpasses the seventh highest on record set in 2008. Earlier in the day, the unofficial crest was thought to be 21.45 feet, but the river rose a little more.

Hydrologist Matt Wilson, from the Quad Cities National Weather Service, says a couple of factors caused it to crest slightly lower than predicted, but well within the forecast range.

Screenshot of the Quad Cities National Weather Service crest, timing, and recession table. The wind is making it difficult to read the river gauges. The river at Lock 15 rose slightly to 21.51 feet after Wilson's 2 pm daily flood risk webinar.
screenshot
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Quad Cities National Weather Service
Screenshot of the Quad Cities National Weather Service crest, timing, and recession table. The wind is making it difficult to read the river gauges. The river at Lock 15 rose slightly to 21.51 feet after Wilson's 2 pm daily flood risk webinar.

"All of the streams and tributaries above here, when that water pushes off into the streams and tributaries to create backwater effects, that basically adds extra storage for the Mississippi. So some of that definitely took a couple tenths off of our crest forecast. And then the other thing is that we just didn't get any significant rainfall."

Wilson says the water will recede over the next couple of weeks in the Quad Cities. "We're expecting us to drop below 21 feet, sometime Thursday, Thursday evening, , and then drop below 20 feet by midday next Sunday."

Snowmelt was the main cause of this year's flood. Wilson says that'll be useful for the weather service to update its flood models.

Davenport's iconic Levee Inn from the base of the skybridge
Michelle O'Neill
/
WVIK News
Davenport's iconic Levee Inn from the base of the skybridge
Moline's 34th Street and River Drive near the Western Illinois University Quad Cities campus with Ben Butterworth Parkway completely submerged
Michelle O'Neill
/
WVIK News
Moline's 34th Street and River Drive near the Western Illinois University Quad Cities campus with Ben Butterworth Parkway completely submerged
Rock Island's Sunset Park and Potter Lake on Saturday, April 29th, 2023
Michelle O'Neill
/
WVIK News
Rock Island's Sunset Park and Potter Lake on Saturday, April 29th, 2023
Just upstream from the previous photo of Rock Island's Sunset Park and Lake Potter, a large pump runs near a flood gate in the city's flood wall
Michelle O'Neill
Just upstream from the previous photo of Rock Island's Sunset Park and Lake Potter, a large pump runs near a flood gate in the city's flood wall

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