ST. LOUIS (AP) - The Latest on spring flooding in the Midwest (all times local):
2:15 p.m.
The flood-ravaged Midwest doesn’t need more rain, but it may get it anyway.
The National Weather Service predicts several days of wet weather this week in the central U.S. Hydrologist Mark Fuchs (Fyooks) says parts of eastern Kansas could get up to 5 inches (13 centimeters) of rain by Friday, and 3 inches (8 centimeters) or more are possible in parts of Iowa and Missouri.
The Mississippi and Missouri rivers and their tributaries are already flooding, causing levee breaches and evacuations. Four deaths last week were blamed on floods.
Fuchs says he is especially concerned about the potential for a new rise in the Missouri River, including in areas of Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and northwestern Missouri that were flooded in late March.
The new rain also will keep the Mississippi River at major flood stage even longer in many places, putting more pressure on already-stressed levees.
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8:15 a.m.
The flooding Mississippi River is inundating farmland and forcing people from their homes as high water levels make their way downstream.
St. Charles County, Missouri, said on Twitter that about 150 people have been displaced by a levee breach. National Weather Service hydrologist Mark Fuchs says a levee also broke in Pike County, near Clarksville. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports several other levees have been overtopped.
St. Louis closed its floodgates in advance of the river cresting there Monday morning. Parkland and some roads are flooding. The high water also has closed regional locks and dams to navigation.
The problems weren’t isolated to communities along the Mississippi River. The National Weather Service issued flash flood watches Monday for much of eastern Kansas and western Missouri.
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