4:20 pm RIVER UPDATE.

According to the Alaska River Forecast Center and the National Weather Service, the Upper Susitna is expected to continue to rise over the next 24-36 hours.  The confluence with Gold Creek is expected to have a one to three foot rise through tomorrow afternoon.  There is a quick routing of the river to the Sunshine bridge, which is expected to crest with one to one and a half additional feet by tomorrow afternoon.

MAT-SU – 4:20 pm RIVER UPDATE. According to the Alaska River Forecast Center and the National Weather Service, the Upper Susitna is expected to continue to rise over the next 24-36 hours.  The confluence with Gold Creek is expected to have a one to three foot rise through tomorrow afternoon.  There is a quick routing of the river to the Sunshine bridge, which is expected to crest with one to one and a half additional feet by tomorrow afternoon. The one big caveat is that they are having difficulty modeling the confluence of the Susitna and Talkeetna rivers and what they will do over the next two days.

The Talkeetna River is expected to crest this evening at the upper gauge; however, the backwater effect means that we may not see a real drop until after the Susitna drops later tomorrow.  Again, it is difficult to predict the effect of the backwater effect, but the bottom line is we are going to see more water.

The Chulitna continues to rise as well.  The models are made more difficult because all are braided rivers with a wide area, so it is hard to determine the increase vertically.

On the bright side, the next two storms are not expected to hit us with the ferocity as the last, so we could be looking on the down side of the flooding problem in the next two days.

Carol Vardeman, PIO 373-5378