Is the Mississippi River flooding?
The Mississippi River is tracked by 3 USGS streamgauges in Missouri. This page compares each gauge’s live water level against its official National Weather Service flood stage, refreshed every 15 minutes, so you can tell whether the Mississippi River is running normal, rising toward flood stage, or already flooding. 3 of 3 gauges have both a usable water-level reading and a published minor flood stage. Gauges without a published flood stage show water level and flow only. For nearby rivers, see all Missouri river levels.
River facts
The longest-running gauge on this river is Mississippi River at St. Louis, MO. The highest level ever recorded there was 49.58 ft on 1 August 1993, carrying 1,080,000 cfs. Peak records there go back to 1844 (165 annual peaks). It is currently at -0.42 ft, 50.0 ft below that record.
| Gauge | Status | Stage | Flood stage | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mississippi River at St. Louis, MO | No flooding | -0.42 ft | 30 ft | |
| Mississippi River at Cape Girardeau, MO | No flooding | 8.24 ft | 32 ft | |
| Mississippi River at New Madrid, MO | No flooding | 0.56 ft | 34 ft |
About the Mississippi River
The Mississippi at St. Louis carries the combined flow of the Upper Mississippi and the Missouri, which join just upstream of the city. It is one of the most consequential river gauges in North America: what happens here reflects conditions across a basin spanning much of the continent's interior.
The Great Flood of 1993
The summer of 1993 produced the costliest and most damaging flood in modern US history. Record flooding hit the Upper Mississippi and Missouri basins across nine states. On 1 August the river at downtown St. Louis crested at a level more than six feet above its previous all-time record, and stayed above that old record for roughly three weeks.
Fifty people died and damages approached $15 billion. Around 10,000 homes were destroyed and another 40,000 damaged. St. Louis itself was largely spared downtown because its 52 ft floodwall held, but hundreds of levees failed elsewhere along the Missouri and Mississippi.
Two rivers in one reading
Because the Missouri joins just above St. Louis, the gauge here responds to two very different basins. The Upper Mississippi tends to deliver prolonged spring rises driven by snowmelt and sustained rain; the Missouri can add a large, separate pulse from the Great Plains.
Serious flooding at St. Louis usually requires both systems to be running high at once. That is what made 1993 exceptional — an unusually wet spring and summer across both basins simultaneously.
Reading this river
Levels here are best understood over days, not hours. A crest forecast is meaningful, and the shape of the rise matters: a slow, sustained climb across a saturated basin is more dangerous than a sharp spike from a single storm.
This is also a heavily engineered reach. Levees, floodwalls and upstream reservoir operations all influence the stage you see, which is why the local flood stage — not the raw number — is the thing to compare against.