Mississippi River Near Historical Lows

My previous articles have mentioned the drought scenarios that are affecting the Midwest and the Southern Plains U.S. and potentially impact the current winter wheat and corn & soybean planting   next spring.  We have also been monitoring that this same drought scenario could impact long-term transportation issues for U.S grain and other commodity supplies as well as consumer prices.

The Mississippi River is very close to historical lows between the cities of St. Louis and Cairo, Ill.  Barge traffic is already mandated to have lighter loads than usual, and the middle of the river could be closed to barge traffic if the water level at St. Louis get under minus-5 feet.  The record low in St. Louis was minus-6.1 feet in January 1940, according to the National Weather Service.  The river was at minus-1.49 feet at 1:30 p.m. on Nov. 26, and may drop to minus-5 or even minus-6 feet as measured by the river gauge in about two weeks if the weather doesn't change and the Army Corps of Engineers drawdown of the Missouri River takes place as planned, according to a spokesman at U.S. North Central River Forecast Center in Chanhassen, Minnesota.

According to the U.S. Climate Prediction Center, the worst U.S. drought since 1956, which affected farmland from Ohio to Nebraska, will possibly last through February in most areas.  Mississippi River barges handle about 60 per cent of the nation's grain exports entering the Gulf of Mexico through New Orleans, as well as 22 per cent of its petroleum and 20 per cent of its coal.  According to AEP River Operations spokesman, approximately 8 million tons of grain, coal, steel, petroleum and other goods travel each month between St. Louis and Cairo.

Several business organizations including the National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the American Petroleum Institute in a letter yesterday to President Barack Obama urged him to declare an emergency in the region, calling for "immediate assistance in averting an economic catastrophe in the heartland" of the U.S. 

The below chart shows a better depiction of how bad this scenario is.


This graph shows the river stage at Chester, IL, from January 2011 to present. The river was actually above flood stage for much of May-July 2011. It dropped from almost 40 feet during that time to 5 feet in November 2011. Then it fluctuated between 5 and 25 feet, until this summer when it dropped below 5 feet and into negative numbers in late September. The latest forecast from the NWS has the river stage reaching -2 feet by December 10,  (more)