May 9-15, 2001

Conditions during May 9-15 were quite similar to previous weeks. Heavy precipitation events affected northern Missouri, eastern Iowa, northern Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan, while much of the area in severe drought in southeastern Missouri, southern Illinois, southern Indiana, and western Kentucky received less than 0.25 inches of rain (Figure 10). The only change from recent weeks was the general lack of rain in Minnesota, where the whole state was below normal for the May 9-15 period (Figure 11). Temperatures were close to normal or a few degrees warmer for the first six days of the period, but a strong warm front associated with much of the rain during the period finally pushed through the region in the last 36 hours of the period (Figure 12). High temperature records were broken at Sioux City, IA, on the 14th, and throughout the region on the 15th, including: Urbana, IL; Paducah, KY; Joplin, MO; Carroll and Waterloo, IA; La Crosse, WI; and Minneapolis and Rochester, MN. Minneapolis reached a high of 94°F, exceeding the previous record by a full 3°F.

During mid-May, federal flood disaster declarations were issued for portions of Iowa (Figure 13, FEMA), Illinois (Figure 14, FEMA), Wisconsin (Figure 15, FEMA), and Minnesota (Figure 16, FEMA). The second flood crest traveled down the Mississippi during the first half of May, finally reaching Missouri around the 15th. The city of Burlington, IA, attained its second highest flood level ever during the secondary crest on May 14, second only to the great flood of 1993 (Figure 17, U.S. Army Corp of Engineers). The magnitude of the second crest in southern Iowa, Missouri, and adjacent Illinois has been pushed higher by a 4-6 inch rain fall on the 13th in northeastern Missouri and southeastern Iowa. That rainfall also caused widespread flash flooding, including the inundation of a low lying neighborhood in Davenport, IA. The residents had survived two Mississippi River flood crests, only to have their location behind the sandbag dikes filled by local runoff into small creeks.