Mississippi going dry?

[redraspberry]

Looks like it may close up to barge traffic before the summer is over. Around me just south of Chicago in the heart of corn county it is the worst I have seen in all my years. Our local river is about down to nothing.

But if it closes it looks like the railroads and trucking will have to take up the slack.

The Mighty Mississippi to Run Dry?

[jayjay]

I heard last week that the Mighty Mississippi was at one foot above sea level at the Alton, IL locks and dams. I am not a hydrologist, but if it goes below sea level, won't it stop flowing?

[redraspberry]

Well that would seem likely but they do have locks to raise the boats up. Just very little water to fill the locks. My local rive basin has three USGS water level and flow meters on it, All show no flow at all and within 2' of the base river bed elevation at that point.

[Carpenter]

Frightening!

How soon will this begin affecting reservoirs, and hydo electric production?

[Mike Hunt]

I wish I had thought this way last week, as I was at a barge terminal last wednesday, I could have asked them. My work takes me to thier shop back
inside the bluff. (storage mine or cave).
But come to think of it, I don't remember any barges at the dock and only saw one grain truck the 45 minutes I was there. I usually see 6-10 trucks scattered thru the process. This is at Clayton, 40 miles North of Dubuque.

Iowa is running about 50% loss on the corn, so there may not be any slack in
shipping to make up, depends on what is sold where.

The drought report the other day, also raised Iowa from like 27% in Extreme Drought to 67% of the State in Extreme Drought.

Looking at the Mississippi I didn't notice any difference, but I wasn't looking for it.

[MaryB]

Minnesota River (Miss tributary) has little if any current, pools are stagnant with algae growing.

[coloredcoat]

Yes, it does have a lot of cargo shipped up and down it. And if it goes dry, the railroads will be instantly flooded along with the semi trucks. There is a disproportionate amount of stuff shipped on the river compared to other means. The good news is, none of it is life threatening cargo needing shipped. It's mostly durable and hard goods like grains, steel, gravel, cement, etc. No one's going to die if these get shipped later rather than sooner. Inconvenient and more costly to ship by rail and truck? You bet.

I'd suggest finding your favorite commodity to trade with and make money on this little known factoid about the river drying up. You could make a killing on some of these when the price shoots up temporarily due to product being stuck in the mud. Mark my words, someone will get very rich over this little piece of news. Could be anyone on here if you played it smart.

[dukadan]

interesting animation.

http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/6_week.gif

greenland is also melting quickly.

any correlation between Fukushima or Chenobyl and droughts?

[fl57caveman]

Looks like it may close up to barge traffic before the summer is over. Around me just south of Chicago in the heart of corn county it is the worst I have seen in all my years. Our local river is about down to nothing.

But if it closes it looks like the railroads and trucking will have to take up the slack.

The Mighty Mississippi to Run Dry?

capacity barge traffic is down by about a third, they cannot load as much, and some locations cannot even handle empty barges, due to the draft being reduced on the barges...

we need rain..lots

[redraspberry]

Down in Mississippi closed for dredging until further notice.

11-mile stretch of Mississippi River closed