Long winter relieves drought status, now causing flooding

As of Monday morning, the high waters of the Milk River started to drop in portions of Phillips County, but the National Weather Service says that floodswaters could stick around through July.

"We are going to have a fair amount of water around until at least mid-May," said Patrick Gilchrist of the National Weather Service Glasgow Office. "We will see some decreases, but we are still bucking near that minor flood stage well into the July timeframe so there is some decent potential there for high river levels. Good news for irrigators, but this isn't going to be a short-lived flooding event."

Late last week, water in many areas had washed out roads in Phillips County including in Wagner where the Four-Corners intersection was closed because of flooding as was parts of the South Wagner Road. During National Weather Service's April Weather-Ready Briefing for Eastern Montana and Northern Wyoming, held last Tuesday, Gilchrist said high river conditions and flooding were taking place on the Milk River from the Blaine County/Phillips County border near Dodson all the way to where the river enters the Missouri River. In September of 2017, all of Phillips County was in D4 drought status (exceptional drought) following a summer with very little rain. As of the April 17 Drought Map, much of Phillips County is entirely out of the drought status and the parts that remain (roughly half of the eastern part of the county) have been downgraded from D4 to D0 (abnormally dry) according to the National Weather Service.

"The high waters, with all the snowpack, is going to linger well into the summer months," Gilchrist said. "So, again, good news from the irrigation standpoint, but a lot of roads are already inundated, and it looks like that water is going to continue to rise especially in that area from Tampico to Glasgow where we tend to see our biggest impacts from this."

Gilchrest said that most people living in imminent danger along the Milk River took action ahead of the water rising and got their families into towns and away from dangerous conditions. He said that while no significant precipitation is expected at this time, a large rain event could cause severe problems.

"We have melted all of our snow," Gilchrist said. "So basically, the water that is out there and the potential water is already being realized in the creeks and streams and it looks like most of the streams and creeks have already run their course, so we are just waiting for the water that has pooled-up in the Milk River-proper to work its way down."

Gilchrist said in Saco, Beaver Creek had flooded leaving the area in the "major-flood stage" the day of the briefing. He said

"It will slowly decrease into the moderate flood stage," he said. "There was a lot of water emptying out of Beaver Creek so there is a lot of water out there, but Saco is known as an island unto itself with its levees protecting it."

NRCS's Shilo Messerly reported that the flood record for the Milk River in Malta had a crest of 23.67 feet in September of 1986 (Malta's Katy Waters told the PCN she remembered a day that year which saw upwards of 10-inches or rain.) As of last Wednesday, it was estimated that the crest was around 17 feet.