ST. LOUIS — While there has been flash flooding this season -- including storms Wednesday night into Thursday morning -- there has been very little widespread flooding.
"We were very lucky," National Weather Service Senior Hydrologist Mark Fuchs said.
2020 may not seem like a lucky year in many other ways, but as far as flooding goes, the St. Louis area has lucked out.
"Coming into this spring season, we were looking at very high soil moisture," Fuchs explained.
High soil moisture means that when it does rain, the ground doesn't absorb it. Instead, water runs off, eventually joining a body of water.
"We were looking at an above-normal amount of snowpack up across Wisconsin and Minnesota," Fuchs said.
When the Upper Midwest snow melts, it adds water to the river supply forcing levels to rise downstream. Adding to all those factors, Fuchs said streamflow levels were up across the bi-state region.
Locally, heavy rainfall and snowfall over winter and early spring pushed the limits of our area creeks and streams.
"It was the perfect scenario for a very bad flood season for us," Fuchs said.
Widespread flooding never materialized.
"The reason it didn't happen is because we had a fairly dry March," explained Fuchs, "a little bit wetter April, but then another month in May that was fairly dry and June was kind of a mixed bag."
Now in July, there have been mostly scattered thunderstorms, producing spotty downpours and locally high rainfall totals.
Fuchs said isolated thunderstorms dropping inches of rain over only a few areas overnight will only cause some creeks and streams to rise.
"If that 2 to 4-inch area of rainfall covers several states at one time, then you got an issue with the big rivers and they will come up."
In the St. Louis region, there is always a risk for river flooding, but if the weather stays the course, we are looking at a quiet year.
