Corps begins April with full capacity of flood control storage
Corps begins April with full capacity of flood control storage
Unusually warm and dry conditions in the Missouri River basin during the month of March resulting in below normal runoff into the mainstem reservoir system for the first time since November 2010.
As a result, the total volume of water stored in the reservoir system on April 1 was 56.9 million acre-feet, leaving 16.2 of the 16.3 MAF of flood control storage available.
Runoff above Sioux City, Iowa was 78 percent of normal bringing in 2.2 MAF of water. Though March was dry in comparison to recent years, it was the 40th driest March in the last 114 years of detailed record-keeping by the Corps.
"The lack of plains snowpack and lower than normal mountain snowpack indicates that we are likely to see below normal runoff during the months of May, June and July," said Jody Farhat, Chief of the Missouri River Basin Water Management Division. "But it’s still early. As we learned last year, conditions on the ground can change very quickly so we will continue to monitor conditions in the basin and make any necessary release adjustments as the spring unfolds."
