Iowa’s Spring Flood Outlook seemed to have good news this year compared to the last couple of years.

State Climatologist Justin Glisan explains a key component that helped to prevent ice jams and river flooding, like what happened in 2019.

“We’ve been abiding by what we call the ‘40/20 Rule’ (with) daytime highs in the 40s (and) overnight lows going back down to the 20s. So you have a gentle melt and refreeze cycle over a period of days.”

Glisan says another issue that caused some flooding in 2020 and 2019 was also due to the oversaturation of the soil.

“You look at last year and the year before, our subsoil profiles were actually locked and loaded getting into spring. So if we think of the subsoil profile as a sponge, we were soaked. We were at 100-percent capacity.”

According to the latest Spring Flood Outlook from the National Weather Service, the report shows that flood risk is lower than in recent years, with the majority of the snow melted which didn’t cause flooding along major waterways and soils are in position to take on extra precipitation.