Some roads still closed after weekend rain

Although the rain has abated, the National Weather Service said it received reports of "widespread flooding" throughout Southeast Missouri over the weekend. The Missouri Department of Transportation also said dozens of roads were closed because of the heavy rain.

"You had flooding all across Southeast Missouri and even some of the smaller rivers -- the Black River, the Current River, the St. Francis, if they haven't flooded today ... they will in the next 48 hours," Robin Smith, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Paducah, Ky., said Sunday.

According to the National Weather Service, 4.12 inches of precipitation was reported Saturday in Cape Girardeau, shattering the old record of 3.56 inches set in 1990. That also beat December's greatest single-day total of 3.92 inches set Dec. 24, 1982.

No flooding is predicted along the Mississippi River as the river is not close to flood stage. At Cape Girardeau, for example, the river is at 15.4 feet and flood stage is considered 32 feet, Smith said. The heaviest rains occurred from the Bootheel northeast through the New Madrid/Mississippi County area into the Cairo, Ill., area, Smith said.

In Scott County, emergency management director Tom Beardslee said 3 to 6 inches of rain fell in different places.

Sikeston, Mo., reported 7.45 inches of rain, Poplar Bluff, Mo., 5.49 and Cairo, 7.78, Smith said.

The system that brought the rain evolved from cold air from Canada and moisture from the Gulf Coast, Smith said.

"For your area," Smith said, "we're calling for a chance of snow flurries through the overnight hours [Sunday], and another chance of snow overnight Wednesday [Christmas Day], but we're not looking for any kind of accumulations at this time. Daytime highs are going to be in the mid-20s to mid-30s, and then Thursday you'll get up to around 40. Overnight lows are going to be in the teens to the mid-20s."

Sunday afternoon's high was 42 degrees, and the temperature was expected to drop to 24 Sunday night. The high for today's forecast is for temperatures in the mid 30s with an overnight low in the mid teens, the site said. Tuesday calls for sunny skies and a high of 25 and a low of 18. Wednesday -- Christmas Day -- it will warm up to 39, but there's a slight chance of snow that night with a low temperature of 26, the site said.

With the drop in temperature, Smith and MoDOT district engineer Mark Shelton said there's a chance some of the water will freeze, especially on roadways or bridges. Shelton urged drivers to use caution, because there could be black ice in some areas for today's commute.

"As of first thing this morning [Sunday]," Shelton said, "we had about 50 roads across the district that were closed." He said some were expected to be open Sunday evening.

"Others, especially in our Bootheel area where it's a lot flatter, may take a little longer for the water to recede so we can open those back up," Shelton said. "Our state routes in Cape Girardeau and Jackson stayed in pretty good shape."

" ... Our 25-county district in Southeast Missouri received in the neighborhood of 6 plus-or-minus inches of rain, so it was pretty steady throughout the district," Shelton said. "We will continue to monitor, and as the water recedes, we'll go ahead and open those roads back up."

Beardslee in Scott County said several roads were closed in low-lying areas. He said U.S. 61 at Sikeston was closed north of town; Highway 91 was closed west of 61 in several places; Route W near Oran, Mo., was closed in a couple places; and 15 county roads had water over them where the traffic couldn't get through, but they are typically roads that flood whenever there's a large amount of rain.

The flooding, he said, was caused by too much water in too short a period of time on ground already saturated by the snow earlier this month. "The ditches worked OK," but Beardslee said it was "way more water" than they could handle.

rcampbell@semissourian.com

388-3639