The river's strangest numbers: 10.90, twice — then 12.70

15 MARCH 1982 · 6 JANUARY 1993 · FEBRUARY 2018

The tie: For twenty-five years, the St. Joseph River's record at South Bend was a tie. Until February 2018, the highest crest ever recorded on the gauge stood at 10.90 feet — and it was reached twice: on 15 March 1982, in the snowmelt flood the Geological Survey documented across three states, and again, to the same tenth of a foot, on 6 January 1993. There the record rested until February 2018 broke it outright, at 12.70 feet. The companion oddity is a flood that was not the river's at all: on the night of 15–16 August 2016 rain fell on the city at one to two inches an hour for hours — the Weather Service's localized amounts exceeding eight inches, and the Weather Prediction Center's storm total of 10.67 inches across the week's rains, figures that measure different spans and are printed as each source states them. Both floods are told whole in the Major Events section; what belongs here is the measured line they are read against: 10.90, twice, and then 12.70.

Sources:

1. The Major Events section of this history — National Weather Service, Northern Indiana (IWX), "Heavy Rain & Flooding Event Summary: February 19th–21st, 2018" (the 12.70-foot crest breaking the previous record of 10.90 feet of 6 January 1993); The Weather Channel, 23 February 2018 (the 10.9-foot record "from Jan. 6, 1993, and March 15, 1982"); the Service's August 2016 event summary and the Weather Prediction Center's storm summary (the 2016 rain figures as each states them); the Rivers section — the gauge record and the 2018 crest's date carried as Major Events carries it.