In his research, Guinan has found that there’s been a jump in heavy daily precipitation events, like rainfall, across the state by studying rainfall events that were at least 3-inches.

The study by the EPA also reported that the average annual precipitation in the Midwest has increased by 5-10% over the last 50 years. The report said that during Missouri’s worst flood in 2011, the amount of water in streams was 20% greater compared to previous years.

By looking at an accumulation of data from 28 weather stations statewide, Guinan noticed that between 1895 and 2019, there was a total of 17 days on average each year where rain exceeded 3-inches. During the years 2000 to 2019, however, those daily rainfall events increased to 23 per year. If this trend continues, flooding will only increase and will have vastly more powerful effects on the number of devastating floods that occur in the Midwest each year.

But this might not seem like a big deal to some Missourians, as anyone who has lived in the state long enough has experienced flooding to some degree. People remember things like the whoosh of torrents of water as it rushes through the streets or the squelch of a shoe that’s sunk into a muddy field as a person walks through a flooded field. Flooding has become normalized enough that most people in Missouri think nothing of it.

Back in 2019, as Moon was capturing the dangerous unrest of the Truman Reservoir, he watched as all four of the reservoir floodgates were forced open and started overflowing by the onslaught of water.

“At the time, it was unheard of to have the floodgates open for such long periods of time,” Moon said. “The whole system was waterlogged.”

The prolonged flooding events of 2019 impacted many more people locally than most realized. According to Moon, citizens from several towns, including Warsaw, were asking why authorities were not releasing water. The water was building up, getting closer and closer to cascading over the top of the barriers, but the Corps had to wait for the water level downstream to lower before they unleashed the built-up water into the already-flooded system.

“That’s one thing I noticed…the water levels were really increasing,” Moon said. “There was just so much rain and there was no place for the water to go.”

On April 7 of this year, Columbia, Mo faced a flood that left water leaking into buildings and parks. At 6 that morning, the water in Hinkson Creek was at 4.12 feet — around average. When 8:30 p.m. rolled around, the water had reached an action level of 13.61 feet. Eastgate Plaza had so many inches of rain that water exploded out of a sewer in the parking lot, causing even more runoff and cracked pavements.

Some Columbia businesses were also casualties of the intense flooding. Clovers Natural Market had to close down until May 1 to repair a storm drain that had overflowed with rainwater.

The Missouri River is plagued by several other problems in addition to dangerous flooding. American Rivers listed the lower Missouri River among America’s Most Endangered Rivers of 2020, reporting that this river is one of the most controlled and engineered rivers in the nation. The many artificial channels, dams and levees work to try to control floods. But all of those manmade interferences with the river create a narrower path for the water that does not give it much room when rising.