The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Lower Mississippi River Forecast Center (LMRFC) released the update below yesterday to document the low river stage conditions. The LMRFC provided the quoted text below along with the attachment to update historic low water readings and the updated river stage predictions from Cairo (IL) to Baton Rouge (LA).

“The rain is on the ground from Hurricane Helene and the reservoir releases and runoff resulting from the rainfall across the Tennessee, Cumberland and Ohio Valleys have stabilized. Forecasted flows and stages reflect more confidence now and are now showing a significant increase in stages at Cairo now cresting at 23.0 ft that will send a moderate rise downstream over the next several weeks keeping the Mississippi above low flow levels just experienced until the latter portion of October.

Our forecasts that include 16 days of future rainfall are not showing much rainfall behind this with October being one of our historically dryer months on the Mississippi. We still have a few months to go with our climatological low flow period.”  (Emphasis supplied)

The supporting information below was prepared by the Big River Coalition:

The Carrolton Gage (New Orleans) reading at 1100 hours today was 2.84 feet with a 24-hour change of + 0.06 feet.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Weather Service Extended Streamflow Prediction (28-Day) for the Carrollton Gage issued today forecasts stages will continue a rise to
4.5 feet on October 10 and will then begin a slow fall to 2.9 feet on October 28 (2024).
Long-range forecasts only include precipitation expected to fall in the next 48-hours.