(NAFB) – The updated 2022 runoff forecast for the Missouri River basin above Sioux City, Iowa, continues to be below average.

“Despite January’s runoff being slightly above average, we expect 2022 runoff to remain below average,” says John Remus, chief of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Missouri River Basin Water Management Division. “Both plains snowpack and mountain snowpack continue to lag behind seasonal averages, and soil moisture continues to be much drier-than-normal.”

January runoff in the Missouri River Basin above Sioux City was just under one million acre-feet, 111 percent of average. Runoff was near-average due to warmer-than-normal temperatures in the upper Basin. Precipitation in January was below normal for most of the upper-basin except for North Dakota, which saw above-normal precipitation.

“The Corps is aware of the importance of our operations to the water supply,” Remus adds. “There is and will be enough water in the river to serve the water-supply needs.”