Why is there flooding in Iowa? Why has the water level rose so high that it was able to flow over the levies?

Question

Why is there flooding in Iowa? Why has the water level rose so high that it was able to flow over the levies? The media never really explained how it happened, all I see are reporters interviewing farmers who's land is currently submerged under water.

Answer 1

Alot of rain on ground that was probably already saturated.  Their soils have much higher percentage of clay than sand.  Sand would allow the water to infiltrate the ground faster and enter the water table, however with saturated clay based soils, more of the water will stand or runoff into the Mississippi,causing flooding that is over running the levees.

Answer 2

It rained a lot there.

Answer 3

Rain fell to quickly for the land to be able to take it all in. When the ground became too saturated, the water had nowhere to go but over the riverbanks and levies to cover miles and miles of land. The Mississippi couldn't flow quickly enough to keep the water level down. Now the backed-up river is eight miles wide - it should only be 1 to 1.5 miles wide.

Answer 4

Rain.

Answer 5

It would have to rain so hard that it would be impossible to see in order cause a flooding situation like this. Even with a saturated ground, the ground is not "level". There is some sort of relief (slope) over the land that would allow rain water to move towards the lowest elevation, in this case, the Mississippi River. --And yes, even farm land has some relief over it or every time it rained it would flood and kill all the crops.

To say that the Mississippi could not flow fast enough is not at all accurate.  The Mississippi flows at an average of 700k to 200k cfs. (1cfs=448gal/min). That’s pretty fast if you ask me.

Ask yourself this. Why is this portion of the river flooded, yet no other portion of the Mississippi is? Compare this situation to a swimming pool. If you fill up a pool to the point of overtopping it would overtop across the entire perimeter not just the shallow or deep end. It would only overtop one section if a dam of some sort was holding it back.

So, the real question should be: What is holding the Mississippi River back thus not allowing it to release water at a rate needed to prevent flooding?