Citizens are reporting slight flooding across fields in eastern South Dakota. Officials say severe flooding is not likely in the area in the coming weeks.
National Weather Service officials say minor flooding is being reported on the lower Big Sioux River and on eastern farmland. This came from a combination of steady rainfall and snow in some areas. Officials say several dry days have brought soil moisture back to a more reasonable amount.
Flooding is caused when heavy rain is dumped on already wet soil. Water can start ponding in flat fields with little to no drainage.
Mike Gillispie is the hydrologist for the National Weather Service in Sioux Falls. He says he doesn’t see a threat of major flooding anytime soon.
“You have to have kind of wet soil, a fairly wet period, or one very intense heavy rainfall, you get into that three to four inch rainfall over a fairly decent sized area you could have some problems but, we don’t have too much threat for any of that right now. The soils are dry, the rivers have come back down, we’ve got a lot of room to hold some water if we do get some rain over the next couple weeks,” says Gillispie.
Gillispie says the dry period comes at a good time for the planting season. He says we likely won’t see heavy storm systems until late May and early June.