Stronger than usual flooding is possible this month in Wisconsin. National Weather Service meteorologist Jason Alumbaugh in Green Bay says an incoming weather system affecting most of the state is adding more snow and rain to calculations.
“The key is how we melt the snow, especially as you go farther into the southern part of Wisconsin, there’s a chance that, you know, temperatures could get pretty warm toward the tail end next week.” Portions of the Wisconsin River near Wausau have already seen flooding. Alumbaugh says it will be crucial that lakes and rivers are thawed to help move water out of flood plains. Following a very windy Friday across the state, a winter storm has the potential to bring significant precipitation in the form of rain changing to snow Saturday into Sunday.
Alumbaugh talks about the possibility of flooding:
TRANSCRIPT: We’ve already even seen some flooding. With the rainfall events we had last weekend, some places in western Marathon County had over an inch and a half. So with that, even though there was no snow on the ground, the ground was still fairly cold and had some frost in it still. So we did have some minor flooding even the Wisconsin River at Wausau got to just a minor flood stage for a day or so. We have a lot of rivers that have already reached bankfull. So we’re kind of already there. Things are kind of primed. The frost is starting to leave the ground. There’s still some out there, but things are kind of softening up a little bit. So now we’re going to add this system for this weekend onto it and there’s potential it could have quite a bit of precipitation with it. It’ll come in the form of snow, but then once it starts to melt next week, that’s kind of what we’re looking at when it hits the ground and kind of soaks into some of the ground, but then also runs off into the rivers. One thing that is positive is that lately our ice that has been on rivers, especially a few weeks ago and on to back into the winter, has started to lessen. So that decreases the risk of ice jam flooding.
Raymond Neupert, WRN