Micheal Clements, NAFB News Service

An expected warm and dry summer has the Missouri River forecast on an average path for 2020. Water releases from Gavins Point Dam will remain at 33,000 cubic feet per second in June, which is about average, according to the Army Corps of Engineers. May runoff in the upper basin was about 130 percent of average. However, the summer climate outlook indicates a return to warmer and drier conditions in the upper basin. Still, the 2020 calendar year upper basin runoff forecast is 32.3 million acre feet, 125 percent of average. The June 1 forecast is in the top 25 percent of the 122 years of runoff record. Soils are drying out in the upper Missouri River Basin, following much wetter-than-normal conditions in 2018 and 2019. The potential for flooding remains in the Missouri River Basin, particularly in the lower river, due to the potential for locally heavy rain and runoff. Further, levee repairs continue from flooding last spring, kicked off by the March 2019 bomb-cyclone weather event.