After Two Weeks, Milk River Receding But Still Running High

Lots of rain and normal snowmelt have combined to swell the Milk River and keep it high for more than two weeks. 

This round of high water started June 19, when the watergage at the Milk River Bridge near Glasgow was at about 10 feet. It went up in a hurry in one day, peaking at 21.05 feet the next evening. On June 21, water was rushing under the bridge at 5,200 cubic feet per second. 

According to Greg Forrester at the Glasgow office of the National Weather Service, the cause was heavy rain on June 16 and 18. May was extremely wet throughout northeastern Montana, he said, and June was pretty wet in some places around Glasgow, so more rain just ran off the saturated ground into the river.

Plus, there was a lot of precipitation upstream in central Montana. Most of the flooding that devastated Rocky Boy's Reservation ended up in the Milk River, and there were really heavy rains in southwest Saskatchewan that came this way. That flooding took out the Trans-Canada Highway near Maple Creek on June 18.

No flood watches were issued for Glasgow, where flood stage is 25 feet.

Since the peak, the water has fallen a bit, keeping steady a little above 17 feet during the last week of June and first week of July.

Forrester said the river was at 16.4 feet Tuesday morning and he expects it to gradually drop, since all the upstream gages are going down. The water flow is down to 3,600 cfs.

There have been isolated flash floods in northeastern Montana this spring, including the one on May 25 when water from Antelope Creek went over Billingsley Road west of Glasgow. That was caused by 1.99 inches of rain that fell May 24-25, Forrester said.

Fort Peck Lake is also reflecting the increased flow of water. It has risen 6 feet in just one month. On July 5 it reached 2,234.1 feet, a level it had not attained since 2000. At 2,251 feet, water begins to flow over the spillway, which hasn't happened since 1997. Only three years ago, in February 2007, the lake bottomed out at an elevation of 2,196 feet. Because reservoirs downstream on the Missouri River are nearly full, water is being held back at Fort Peck. Three times as much water is coming into the lake as going out, Forrester said.