Last year, we were dealing with historic flooding on the Missouri River and several other local rivers. So far this year, we’re dealing with many other issues, but thankfully additional flooding isn’t one of them. In fact, the Missouri River is running at fairly “normal” levels in Omaha right now, but let’s do a quick recap of some historic highs and lows.
Right now, the Missouri River level in Omaha is near 18 feet. This is close to its average seasonal level. In fact, it’s less than five percent below the seasonal level.
After last year, a river level of nearly 18 feet might seem low. Which is understandable when just last year we added two historic crest levels to the “Top 5” here in Omaha. The first historic crest in 2019 happened on March 17th and the second on June 5th.
For reference, the highest crest was 40.40 feet on April 18th, 1952 and the lowest river level was 6.85 feet on February 5th, 1989. In Omaha, the Missouri River reaches flood stage at 27 feet and enters low stage at 10 feet. So, in the grand scheme of everything, a level of 18 feet is fairly average.
