The City of Dell Rapids may not have seen the last of the flooding issues this spring. The National Weather Service’s Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service website is predicting the river to rise above 15′ again by Thursday, April 18th and potentially reach a level of 15.5′ by Saturday, April 20th.
Weeks ago the prediction service had predicted the river to potentially be down to 12′ by Friday, April 5th, but the Big Sioux River only dropped to just under 13.5′ by that time. The current prediction is indicating the river to stay close to the 14′ mark through Friday, but then drop to about 13′ by early next week. This appears to be just a lull before the river again rises by mid-to-late next week. Dell Rapids saw the Big Sioux River reach the high point of 15.98′ on Sunday, March 24th. The current prediction shows the level to stay under that high point as of now.
Administration with the City of Dell Rapids has urged homeowners to monitor the National Weather Service forecast and again prepare for more rising waters through a message on Facebook. You can monitor the National Weather Service’s water level predictions for the Big Sioux River by clicking this link.