Record low levels on the Missouri River at KC

[Brian Stertz]

RECORD LOW WATER LEVEL IS OCCURRING ON THE MISSOURI RIVER AT KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI!

THE STAGE OF THE MISSOURI RIVER AT KANSAS CITY ON THURSDAY AFTERNOON WAS 3.3 FEET AND FALLING. THIS BREAKS THE PREVIOUS RECORD LOW WATER LEVEL OF 3.65 FEET SET ON DECEMBER 9 2005.

WHILE FRIDAYS WATER LEVEL IS EXPECTED TO SET A RECORD FOR THE LOWEST STAGE...IT WILL NOT SET A RECORD FOR THE LOWEST FLOW. THE LOWEST RECORDED FLOW OCCURRED ON DECEMBER 18 1963 WHEN THE RIVER EXHIBITED A FLOW OF 4240 CUBIC FEET PER SECOND. BY CONTRAST...THE FLOW ON FRIDAY IS EXPECTED TO BE OVER 17000 CUBIC FEET PER SECOND.

THE REASON THAT FRIDAYS FLOW OF OVER 17000 CUBIC FEET PER SECOND WILL EXHIBIT A RECORD LOW WATER LEVEL IS THAT THE CHANNEL OF THE MISSOURI RIVER HAS BEEN GRADUALLY DEEPENING WITH TIME. THIS DEEPENING...COMBINED WITH A TEMPORARY REDUCTION IN FLOW DUE TO ICE UPSTREAM...WILL RESULT IN THE RECORD LOW WATER LEVEL.

Found this to be an interesting case/explanation...I thought the river looked way down going over the Paseo bridge the other day.

 

[Anthony Silver]

I took notice of this the other day while passing over the Fairfax Bridge. I thought it had more to do with the ongoing drought as opposed to channel deepening and flow reduction. Very interesting indeed. I just hope it won't adversly affect KC's water supply since most of it comes from the MO River.

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

The river in that area will most likely see some crazy fluctuations in the coming weeks, as the text mentioned ice upstream is tying up much of the water. The recent cold spell with temps -20 below and not getting any higher then 10 during the day has certainly caused a lot of ice formation. In fact while its no longer in effect I saw yesterday that a Flood Warning was in affect for the river in the area around Niobrara due to the ice in that text they mentioned limiting water release from an up river Dam to combat the rising water, while the impact from that most likely is not impacting the KC area as of yet the excess ice to the N certainly is, however once the ice breaks up the river will rise quite quickly.