Forecasters say major flooding is a possibility as the region braces for heavy rainfall over the next five days.
Mark Fuchs is a hydrologist with the National Weather Service.
He says melting rain and ice from northern states combined with localized rainfall is creating flood conditions from near the Iowa state line in Canton, Mo. all the way south of St. Louis.
"Basically what that ice and snow did is it brought the river up high enough to where any additional rain that we're getting right now is going to up the ante that much more," Fuchs said. "So the ice and snow from up north brought us to where we're at today."
Fuchs says it's still too early to predict how bad flooding will be, but that 6 to 9 inches of rain is expected to flow into the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.
Fuchs says most of the heavy storms will move south of St. Louis, but the rain is expected to return by tomorrow and Sunday.
