Keep a close eye on the rainfall forecasts

The Mississippi River continues to frustrate just about everyone. We started the year with near-record low river stages, and now the river is poised to deliver near-record high stages in June. Right now, the forecast shows the river cresting at 45.5 feet on the Cape Girardeau gage, a level that would be only 3 feet shy of the all-time record set in 1993.

More rain is on the way, although not as heavy as last week's deluge. The next weathermaker is slated to bring thunderstorms Wednesday through Friday.

According to this afternoon's forecast discussion from the National Weather Service in Paducah, "IT APPEARS AMPLE MOISTURE AND INSTABILITY WILL BE IN PLACE FOR LOCALLY HEAVY RAIN. THE LIMITING FACTOR FOR A MORE WIDESPREAD HEAVY RAIN EVENT IS THE LACK OF ANY SUSTAINED LOW LEVEL JET...WHICH WAS THE KEY INGREDIENT FOR SATURDAYS FLASH FLOOD EVENT."

In their Hazardous Weather Outlook, they also state, "WHILE AN ISOLATED SEVERE STORMS CANNOT BE RULED OUT DURING THIS TIME...THE MAIN CONCERN WILL BE LOCALLY HEAVY RAIN."

This will be followed by another system arriving on Sunday. We're projected to receive 0.75 inches from both systems over the next 7 days in Southeast Missouri, with much higher amounts (2-3 inches) to the north and west.

In today's "U.S. Hazards Outlook" produced by the Climate Prediction Center, the forecasters seem to be most concerned with northwest Missouri and southwest Iowa as the focus of the heaviest rain.

They warn, "THE NEXT SYSTEM IS EXPECTED TO DEVELOP TO THE LEE OF THE CENTRAL ROCKIES AND MOVE TOWARDS THE GREAT LAKES. HEAVY RAIN IS EXPECTED WITH THIS SYSTEM FOR PARTS OF IOWA, MISSOURI, NEBRASKA, AND KANSAS WITH ISOLATED SEVERE WEATHER POSSIBLE AS WELL. THIS RAINFALL COULD EXACERBATE THE FLOODING CONDITIONS THAT ARE ONGOING ACROSS A LARGE AREA OF THE MID-MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.

If the Upper Mississippi watershed receives even more rain than expected, the river forecast could get far uglier -- and it's plenty ugly already.

Oklahoma update

Last week, I mentioned the potential for a major tornado outbreak in Oklahoma. I wrote, "I'm sure everybody over there is just thrilled about that (except for suicidal tornado chasers)."

Those words turned out be even more true than I could have imagined, as three tornado chasers were killed. It appears that this was the first time that storm chasers have ever been killed while actively chasing.