Market Matters Blog

OMAHA (DTN) -- Warmer weather is allowing ice on northern portions of U.S. inland waterways to melt and break up, leading to warnings of ice jams on major river shipping routes.

On March 10, the National Weather Service (NWS) released its north-central river forecast for the Mississippi and Illinois rivers and said ice had thickened in the north the prior week. It was beginning to break up and head south, and along with melting snow, stream flows were increasing. NWS warned that ice jams were a strong possibility until all the ice cleared out. The agency said that the heaviest ice indicted by a MODIS satellite imagery was at Lock and Dam 3 (LD) through LD15. Ice measured in that area ranged from 90% to 100% coverage with ice ranging from 5 to 19 inches thick.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), St. Paul District, had hoped to reopen Lock and Dam 5A, near Fountain City, Wisconsin, on March 9, but thick ice conditions indicated that navigation will not begin on the Upper Mississippi River until later than originally anticipated. The USACE is hoping to open LD5A no later than March 23. The lock and dam was closed for renovation and maintenance on Dec. 1, 2014. The lock was dewatered to perform the work in order to repair concrete: repair, sandblast and paint the miter gates and replace the bubbler system. This extensive work occurs about every 15-20 years on each of the district's lock and dams from Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam in Minneapolis to Lock and Dam 10 in Guttenberg, Iowa.

The ice measurements at Lake Pepin on March 11 showed a slight improvement from the prior week, but still are showing ice thickness of 11 to 24 inches. Barges will not move through the lake until ice is below 15 inches. In 2014, the first barge was not able to move through Lake Pepin until Wednesday, April 16. The extreme ice thickness on Lake Pepin last winter caused the latest start to a navigation season since 1970 (excluding the flooding in 2001). On average, the start to the UMR navigation season with the first barge moving on Lake Pepin, is March 22.

Ice on the Illinois River was reported by the NWS to be breaking up and coverage was at 30% to 100%. They said the threat of ice jams will likely continue for another week. Ice jams can be dangerous to moving barges with traffic either slowing or stopping depending on the severity.

Down river at Cairo, Illinois, flooding from the Ohio River has moved above flood stage. The Ohio River crested March 15 at a level not seen since 1997. The NWS has said that the melting snow and several rainfalls have caused the flooding, and dangerous ice jams from the northern rivers will continue to be a hazard. Here is a link to the current level of the Ohio River at Cairo. http://water.weather.gov/…

THE ALDER AND HER SISTERS GO TO WORK

The USCG ice cutter Alder began breaking ice in the Twin Ports of Duluth/Superior on March 9. "Right now we are preparing the inbound and outbound track for the Duluth-Superior Harbor," Lt. J.G Barton Nanney, the deck watch officer, told the Great Lakes Shipping News. "Just getting ready for the shipping season, but also just kind of doing a little bit of recon to see how bad the ice is out there."

Nanney said this year is off to a better start. "We're looking at probably about 6 inches out here, maybe a foot in some places," he said. "We've seen a couple pressure ridges that are a couple feet thick." He reported that there were some trouble spots on the lake and that "Whitefish Bay over to the east is usually pretty thick, and no one's been over there yet. So that's going to be kind of a tell to see how bad it's going to be." He said they will keep working on the ice in the Twin Ports harbor and then head farther out onto the lake and possibly head to Thunder Bay or Marquette if ordered.

On Friday, March 13, the USCG began icebreaking operations in the St. Marys River in preparation for the 2015 shipping season. The USCG said that the ice breaking work will be "conducted by the Mackinaw (Cheboygan, Michigan), Biscayne Bay (St. Ignace, Michigan), Mobile Bay (Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin) and Katmai Bay (Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan)." All of these ice cutters will be working toward one goal and that is to prepare for the opening of the Soo Locks, which were scheduled to re-open March 25. The Soo Locks are located on the St. Marys River between Lake Superior and Lake Huron, between the upper peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan and the Canadian province of Ontario.

In an email sent to DTN on March 13, Ron Johnson, port director in Duluth, said, "On March 10 the Seaway opening date of March 27 was pushed back until April 2." Once the Laker season opens on the Great Lakes, the start to the grain shipping season waits for the first oceangoing vessel, known as a saltie, to make it to the Twin Ports after the making a full transit of the 2,342-mile Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway. Johnson told DTN that, "Based on some conversations with some area port folks there is no official date -- just a general estimated date of mid-April for the first saltie arriving Duluth-Superior." In 2014, the first saltie did not make it to the Twin Ports until May 8 which was the latest opening to the grain shipping season on record.

On March 15, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported the Great Lakes ice coverage at 63.2% versus 82.8% on March 17, 2015. NOAA said it was the highest mark for that late in the season in more than 35 years, and it surpassed the previous mid-March high of 75.85% set on March 15, 1978.

Mary Kennedy can be reached at mary.kennedy@dtn.com

Follow Mary Kennedy on Twitter @MaryCKenn

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