Wisconsin's rivers rise as rest of Midwest hit by devastating flooding (2024)

Though the destructive flooding battering Minnesota and Iowa has yet to reach Wisconsin, local and state officials are closely monitoring river levels that have risen substantially over the past month.

So far this month, rainfall amounts in most of the state have been one a half to two times higher than the June average, said Sarah Marquardt, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sullivan. As a result, rivers are running at some of the highest levels the state has ever recorded in June, with some locations seeing three to five times the normal volume of water.

“What’s noteworthy about this is how widespread this rainfall has been and how anomalously high it is across pretty much the entire state,” Marquardt said.

Wisconsin received 17.7 inches of precipitation between January and May, according to the Wisconsin State Climatology Office. Over the same period last year, the state saw 12.3 inches.

Many parts of the state, including the Wisconsin Dells and the area around Beaver Dam, have received 6 to 10 inches of rain this month, Marquardt said, far above the southern Wisconsin average of just over 4 inches in June.

In La Crosse, the Mississippi River is running at 14 feet, one foot above moderate flood stage, and it’s projected to remain there through the Fourth of July.

The city’s infrastructure was built to accommodate the second-longest river in the nation, said Molly McCormick, the La Crosse Fire Department’s community risk educator. Even at moderate flood stage, very few structures have so far been affected by the high water.

“We’re no strangers to flooding,” McCormick said.

Still, most of the city’s beaches are underwater, and local officials have closed boat landings and trails while discouraging people from taking their boats onto the river through Independence Day. A water ski show at La Crosse’s annual Riverfest celebration, set for July 3-6, has been canceled due to a no-wake restriction.

“We know that water is a tradition of summer,” McCormick said. “We just really highly advise people to take that extra caution to potentially wait another week or two before they get on the water.”

Near the village of Muscoda in Grant and Iowa counties, the Wisconsin River has also risen to dangerous levels for boating, said Mark Cupp, executive director of the Lower Wisconsin State Riverway Board, which monitors and protects the Wisconsin River south of Prairie du Sac.

At the Prairie du Sac dam upstream of Muscoda, the flow was 40,000 cubic feet of water per second Wednesday morning, up from just under 11,000 the week before. The river rose above seven feet at Muscoda, a height at which the National Weather Service recommends local agencies and residents take mitigation action.

Cupp holds regular canoe trips down the Wisconsin River for members of the public, but he was forced to cancel them through the end of next week as the water continued to rise.

“It’s just not safe to be out there paddling in these kinds of conditions,” he said.

‘Domino effect’

Low-lying fields and roads near the riverbank were underwater Wednesday, Cupp said. Heavy precipitation from the north combined with southern Wisconsin’s own frequent rainfall creates a “domino effect” for the area’s floodplains.

When rain blankets the whole state instead of falling in a particular region, safely draining the excess water from a river becomes more difficult as tributaries are themselves swollen.

“All of a sudden, everything gets backed up and backed up, and then all of these bottoms are full. There’s no place for the water to go,” Cupp said.

Whether the Wisconsin River levels pose a significant flood risk will depend on how much rain the state receives over the next few weeks, Cupp said.

The National Weather Service forecasts rain in Muscoda on Friday, then again on Monday and Tuesday. Cupp said the predicted precipitation is not enough to dramatically raise river levels, but he stressed forecasts are not always accurate.

“With the ground being saturated and the water level so high, if we do get additional heavy rain, we’re more susceptible to flooding and flash flooding,” Marquardt said.

High waters to hold

The Mississippi River near La Crosse crested on Thursday, Marquardt said. Still, the water will remain high in rivers across the state through at least the next few weeks, even if Wisconsin doesn’t receive significant amounts of additional rain.

Some rivers “go down much more quickly than others,” Marquardt said. The Rock River in particular takes a long time to drain, and it is projected to remain above flood stage through at least the next week.

“It’s going to take several weeks for things to go back to normal if we don’t continue to get this heavy rain,” she said. “If we stay wet, these water levels may remain elevated for many more weeks.”

A few homes in the village of Orfordville were flooded, said Rock County Emergency Management Director Kevin Wernet. Crews are still conducting assessments of the full extent of the storm damage.

Though the Rock River did not flood, county officials “are closely monitoring the situation” for potential risk, Wernet said.

“We’ve been training, and we’re ready if we need to take action,” Wernet said. “We’ve already done some planning around that way before the spring storm started.”

In response to the storm damage, the county will hold a multi-agency meeting Tuesday at Janesville’s Human Services Building to connect residents with recovery resources.

Extreme weather

Wisconsin’s swollen rivers mark a stark contrast to 2023, when much of the state suffered from severe drought throughout the summer.

“We went from a large portion of the state experiencing severe drought last summer and fall to now, where we have widespread heavy rain and flooding across the state,” Marquardt said.

But expect this type of extreme weather whiplash to become more common, Marquardt said. Extreme weather, including heavy rain events, will likely become more frequent and more intense in the future due to climate change.

“Wet times are being wetter, dry times are being drier, and we’re seeing this back and forth,” she said.