English: Winter rains and snowmelt across the Mississippi River watershed swelled many of the rivers in the central Mississippi River basin in late January 2021. According to the National Weather Service, minor flooding was recorded at 5 river gauges in Missouri and two in Arkansas as of January 26. While flooding along the Mississippi is common and expected in spring, when warming temperatures typically melt heavy snow in the northern and high elevation sections of the watershed and when spring rains fall, off-season flooding in January does occur at times—especially in warm winters that bring precipitation in the form of rain instead of snow.

On January 22, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Aqua satellite captured a false-color image of the region that highlighted the complex network of rivers that flow into the Mississippi in Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas. False-color (MODIS bands 7,2,1) uses infrared and visible light to help distinguish certain features that would be difficult to see in true-color. In this case, the dark blue water stands out dramatically from bright green vegetation. Tan is unvegetated lands, such as agricultural fields that are fallow in the winter.

Illinois sits in the north in this image, with the Mississippi River (west) forming the natural border between Illinois and Missouri and, in the east, the Ohio River forms the boundary with Kentucky. The town of Cairo, Illinois sits where the Ohio joins the Mississippi River. Arkansas can be seen in the south of the image, west of the Mississippi River. Water can be seen standing in the low-lying land near the Saint Francis River, Arkansas in the lower left corner. This area has been flagged by the National Weather Service as being in “Minor Flood” stage. In the north, two large lakes can be seen crossing from Kentucky (north) into Tennessee (south). The western long lake is named Lake Kentucky while the eastern one is called Lake Barkley. The area between the two lakes is aptly called “The Land Between the Lakes” and is a National Recreation Area.