Low Water Levels Are Causing Barge Backups on the Mississippi River

United States Soil Moisture Anomaly on October 7,2022 Low water levels are making it tough to deliver products down the Mississippi River and permitting a wedge of saltwater to move upstream. In the fall and winter season, water levels on the Mississippi River typically decrease, however not by almost as much as they carried out in October2022 Current weeks of dry weather condition in the Ohio River Valley and Upper Mississippi River Valley have actually triggered river water to drop to levels that have actually not been seen in more than a years along essential parts of the river. For slowing barge traffic, the low water levels are raising issues that saltwater invasions in the Lower Mississippi might impact water materials. On October 7, 2022, the Operational Land Imager (OLI-2) on Landsat 9 recorded this natural-color image (listed below) of the dry river. The image exposes backed-up barges north of Vicksburg, Mississippi. According to report, well over 100 towboats and barges waited sometimes due to a short-lived river closure brought on by barge groundings and dredging work. The towboats and barges are strung together into groups that differ in size however can quickly be 1,000 feet (300 meters) long and 100 feet (30 meters) large. Natural-color satellite picture of the dry Mississippi River on October 7,2022 (Click image for broader view.) The map above demonstrate how damp the soil was on the very same day the Landsat 8 image was gotten. Utilizing information from the Crop Condition and Soil Moisture Analytics (Crop-CASMA) item, the map reveals soil wetness abnormalities on October 7, 2022, or how the water material in the leading meter (3 feet) of soil compared to typical conditions for the time of year. Brown locations were drier; blue locations were wetter. Crop-CASMA incorporates measurements from NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite and plants indices from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites. By October 20, river levels at Vicksburg had actually dropped to 0.66 feet (0.20 meters), a low level however still well above the record low of -7.00 feet in1940 Further upstream in Memphis on October 17, 2022, the river level dropped to -1079 feet, the most affordable level tape-recorded at the website because the start of National Weather Service records there in1954 October 2019– October 2022 On October 20, at New Madrid, Missouri, water levels had actually dropped to -5.1 feet, simply a little above the minimum operating level of the gage. Water levels, or “gage height,” or “river phases” do not suggest the depth of a stream; rather, they are determined with regard to a picked recommendation point. That is why some gage height measurements are unfavorable. An absence of rain over an extremely broad location is the primary factor water levels have actually dropped so low, discussed Tennessee State Climatologist Andrew Joyner. “It does not take wish for water levels to decrease offered an absence of rain over such a big location,” he stated. Downstream, in the lower part of the river, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is handling the invasion of saltwater into the lower reaches of the river. Typically, the circulation of the river avoids saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico from moving extremely far upriver, however the river is so low that a wedge of saltwater has actually sneaked northward and threatens consumptions utilized for freshwater materials. To avoid saltwater from getting further upstream, the Corps started building and construction on an undersea sill in Myrtle Grove, Louisiana, on October11 Forecasting from the National Weather Service Lower Mississippi River Forecast Center requires water levels to drop even lower at numerous points along the river in coming weeks. In most cases, they anticipate water levels to drop even lower than they carried out in 2012, 2000, and 1988– other years when water levels struck abnormally low levels. What will occur beyond a couple of weeks is less clear. “Looking at one- and three-month projections, it appears like there are equivalent possibilities of above or below par rains,” Joyner stated. “If we wind up with typical rains, conditions may not get worse, however it likewise will not result in enhancements.” NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, utilizing soil wetness information from Crop Condition and Soil Moisture Analytics (Crop-CASMA), Landsat information from the U.S. Geological Survey, and information from the National Water Information System.

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