Abnormally dry or drought conditions are present across 73 percent of the Missouri River Basin, with drought conditions likely to persist or get worse through November. August runoff was 1.2 million acre-feet, 86 percent of the average above Sioux City, Iowa.
The updated 2024 calendar year forecast for the upper Basin is 23.8 million acre-feet, 92 percent of the average annual runoff, which is 25.7 MAF. “August rainfall was generally near normal across most of the Missouri River Basin, with isolated areas of above normal precipitation in every state except Nebraska,” says John Remus of the Army Corps of Engineers.
Nebraska was generally below average with most of northern Nebraska’s precipitation at 50 percent of normal. As of September 1, the total water volume in the system was 55.1 MAF, one million below the base of the system’s flood control zone. System storage is expected to decrease through the fall.
