Here is the summary from the National Weather Service Twin Cities 2023 Spring Flood Outlook:
Summary
We continued to add to the snowpack in February and early March, and the flood probabilities have risen in response. Alleviating factors such as soil moisture and low water levels are going to have less relevance as we move through March, while shallow frost depth will help a little. The weather outlook through March is for continued cooler than normal conditions, which could allow for the snowpack to remain in place as we move toward April and the increasing probabilities of seeing a warm and/or wet weather system. Thus, our spring flood threat is well above normal, especially for the Mississippi River from St. Paul downstream (as the upper Mississippi joins the Minnesota, St. Croix, and Chippewa Rivers which all have a high snowpack).
It’s now not so much a question of if we will see flooding, but how severe and widespread will it be? The severity of flooding will depend on if we receive heavy rainfall and/or very warm temperatures during the melt.
Due to the nature of this year’s flood threat, we will issue an additional spring flood outlook in two weeks, on March 23rd.
Of course, we’ll always issue briefings and decision support packets if flooding becomes imminent or potentially significant. Keep an eye on upcoming weather patterns at weather.gov/mpx , and monitor river levels at https://water.weather.gov/ahps2/index.php?wfo=mpx .
