WARMER WEATHER FINALLY RETURNS

Tim Bank's luck at fishing lately has been like the Mississippi River -- up and down.

"This is the second time I've been out here, and I still haven't caught anything," said Banks, who went with a friend to the Diversion Channel on Tuesday. "I need to get back out on the river."

Although the rise and fall of the river -- and of recent temperatures -- have kept some fishermen and farmers at odds with nature, the conditions aren't unique, said Mary Lamm of the National Weather Service in Paducah, Ky.

"These conditions are not common, but I would not call them abnormal," Lamm said.

Few regional temperature records have been broken, she said.

Sunday's high temperature for Cape Girardeau was an unseasonably cool 64 degrees. A phenomenon called "cut off lows" is responsible for the recent cool down, said Alfred Robertson, a former professor of earth sciences at Southeast Missouri State University.

"They pump in all kinds of Canadian air," Robertson said.

These rare lows, which are usually moved by the jet stream, detach and create cooler temperatures for a large portion of the Midwest, he said. However, the return of more normal temperatures shows the effects are diminishing.

Meanwhile, the Mississippi River is on the rise again. The river, at 30 feet Tuesday, is expected to crest at 37 feet, five feet above flood stage, by late Sunday or early Monday, Lamm said. The river should go above flood stage late today.

Andy Juden, head of the Main Street Levee District, expects to close Cape Girardeau's Themis Street floodgate about 8 a.m. Friday for the first time this year.

"By Sunday, there would be about 16 inches of water on the gate," said Juden. "By 1993 or '95 standards that might not be a lot, but you talk to some of these farmers now with wheat and beans under water, and it's enough for them."

The floodgate at Broadway is closed when the Mississippi reaches 39 feet, Juden said.

The river generally has been higher this year from increased precipitation in the Upper Mississippi and Missouri river basins, Lamm said.

"All that water is slowly making its way down river now," she said.

A year ago, the river at Cape Girardeau was at 19.4 feet.