As our rain moves out and rivers once again rise, we're learning about a pretty unique partnership between meteorologists and hydrologists who keep track of it all.
One deals in the atmospheric conditions that produce the storms and rain we've seen the past few days. The other with what happens afterward.
"They have their own modeling over there to say, 'hey, if we get this much rain in this area, what's the lag time for it to travel through this part of the earth, and and make its way towards the stream.' How long will that take? And then from that, as that water flows in, how quickly, how rapidly will the river rise," says National Weather Service meteorologist Joe Strus.
In this case, even with several inches of rainfall, we've dodged a bullet according to Strus.
While some of the state's rivers to the west and south of the Twin Cities may see moderate flooding, the storms were widespread enough that none are expected to hit major flood stage, says Strus.
"They're not anticipating that any of the gauges will go into major flood stage, so that's a good development," Strus explains. "And it's one of those scenarios where had we had storms, you know, come over the same area with each additional round, we could have had more of a problem. But we got kind of lucky in that regard."
Strus says that getting rainfall reports are crucial for hydrologists to know what to expect.
"Very important to get that ground truth on how much rain actually fell so that the hydrologists can put that real data into their modeling," says Strus. "So that they can, you know, start to get an idea, OK, how is this going to flow through the ground towards the river? And what kind of response are we going to see?"
Minnesota soaked by weekend rains
Significant rains fell over southern Minnesota Sunday and early Monday and there are areas that are underwater.
Waseca, Minnesota, between Mankato and Rochester, received literally months worth of rain with over a foot of precipitation since Saturday. There are still some roads underwater in parts of the state Monday.
Nearly 3-inches of rain fell at MSP Airport and parts of the downtown areas reported up to 4-inches. Not quite what Waseca and other areas to the south received, but still a lot of rain.
There's good news for swamped areas of Minnesota though. WCCO-TV Chief Meteorologist Chris Shaffer says once the rain moves out Monday, it's smooth sailing for a bit.
"It's gonna be mostly cloudy the rest of the day, still humid, sorry, we can't get rid of that yet, but we'll be done with the rain, possibly for a solid week and beyond," Shaffer said on the WCCO Morning News. "It's really going to dry out around here."
Expect partly cloudy on Monday night with sunshine Tuesday and a high of 81. Shaffer says it'll still remain a bit humid, but a break from the humidity is coming by Wednesday.
"Otherwise, this is a completely dry forecast," says Shaffer.
Flood Warnings continue for the following rivers in Minnesota:
Cottonwood River Above Springfield affecting Brown County.
Cottonwood River at New Ulm affecting Brown County.
Redwood River near Redwood Falls affecting Redwood County.
Minnesota River at Granite Falls HWY 212 affecting Chippewa, Renville and Yellow Medicine Counties.
Minnesota River at Morton affecting Redwood and Renville Counties.
Minnesota River at Montevideo affecting Lac qui Parle, Chippewa and Yellow Medicine Counties.