Forecasters says last year’s Missouri River flooding was so bad that they had trouble predicting river stages. Central Region Director Lynn Maximuk of the National Weather Service says levels rose beyond historic measurements.

Maximuk says flood stage predictions are based on observed relationships between flood rates and flood levels. But he says last year’s rates were “off the charts” so there was no known relationship on which to base predictions. Maximuk says the weather service is now adding data from last year to make the models more accurate.