News

Lower Mississippi River levels being monitored

The lower Mississippi River remains low as the new crop marketing year begins and that could become a challenge for ag exports.

Mark Fuchs, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in St. Louis, tells Brownfield “there’s potential for the lower part of the river, below St. Louis and Chester, Illinois, for the river to be falling down into dangerous levels again.”

Tropical Storm Francine is expected to bring two-to-three inches of rain to the Delta the next few days and Fuchs says that will help in the short-term, but “we’re not expecting it to really affect the upper end of the Ohio River and that’s where it’s really needed to help the rest of the river. Most of the heavy rain will be toward the southern end of Illinois, western end of Kentucky and southeast Missouri.”

Fuchs says the bodies of water flowing into the Mississippi River are low, too, including the Ohio River and at times, the Missouri River.

Arlan Suderman with StoneX Group says he’s monitoring the situation.

“We’ll need more rains coming in the weeks and months ahead to keep water levels high and move as much as we can down the river, particularly before the northern half of the Mississippi River closes for the winter.”

Suderman says low river levels could cause more of an issue for ag exports than previous years.

“Last year we had low water levels, but it wasn’t as much of an issue because the demand coming out of key markets in southeast Asia simply wasn’t there because the Panama Canal couldn’t handle bulk cargoes because of water levels there. That’s not an issue this year.”

And he says the possible increase in demand for U.S. commodities will put more focus on the lower Mississippi River levels.