Mississippi River Overview

Carl Sherman commented on the following Amazing Maps post
[I put the comment ahead of the post because it is a more accurate map.]
The map is not accurate. The Red River of the North, which forms the border between MN and ND, flows north to Lake Winnipeg and eventually reaches Hudson Bay. Here is a more accurate map of the Mississippi watershed:
Nikolas Pokrzywa: Carl Sherman this is more accurate yet it still doesn’t include the Monongahela River.

Amazing Maps posted
The Mississippi River and its tributaries
Michael Peterson: Inaccurate. Parts of Minnesota and North and South Dakota drain into the Red River of the North and from there ultimately to Hudson Bay. They are wrongly depicted here as part of the Mississippi basin.
Jim Mitchell: Michael Peterson I think that's one reason why there is concern every winter about flooding in North Dakota, the water moves northward and gets stuck in frozen ice.
Mark Whitacre: Michael Peterson it is not totally accurate.. parts of Ohio are incorrect as well.
Phil Yoder: Michael Peterson it is also missing the entire Muskingum and Tuscarawaras watersheds in Ohio. The Great lakes watershed starts WAY north of what is shown on this map.
Harry Bowman: The flow of the St. Lawrence is almost as much as the Mississippi. The Mississippi has a mean discharge of 18,434 cubic meters per second while the St. Lawrence has 16,800 per second.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rivers_by_discharge
Max Forgey: In 1820 the Indiana legislature chose Bloomington as the location for what was then called Indiana Seminary because it was at the very top of the divide between the East Fork and the West Fork of the White River about 785 feet above sea level. They reasoned that it was the least malaria prone place they could find.
Jack Switzer: Needs to go little further north into Ohio to accurately display the Scioto and Miami Rivers.
Frank Slider: A major tributary to the Ohio River is missing in western West Virginia, Middle Island Creek. Middle Island Creek is located between Fishing Creek to the north & the Little Kanawha to the south. These two tributaries are shown.
Mark Greenwald: Slight mistake here .... the rivers furthest to the east in WV and Maryland (South & North Branches of the Potomac and Wills Creek) are part of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Now, the river at the far western edge of Maryland is the Youghigheny River that flows northward towards Pittsburgh and IS a part of the Mississippi River watershed.
Stephan Hill: Calley Donath-Beardsley Minnesota drains in 3 directions: into the Mississippi and thence south into the Gulf of Mexico; into Lake Superior and then eastward through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway into the Atlantic; and north into Hudson Bay (mostly via the Red River. There is a rare 3-way continental divide near Hibbing.
[I looked at just 50 of the 401 comments.]

 

Michael Peterson commented on Amazing Maps post
This area flows northward to Hudson Bay and not to the Mississippi as pictured in the OP.

Dan Reis commented on Michael's comment

Mark Fagerburg commented on Amazing Maps post
Nope- Here is an accurate map.
Chris Callais: Brower’s Spring in SW Montana is the source of the Missouri as well as being the point furthest from the mouth of the Mississippi within that river system.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brower%27s_Spring
Nikolas Pokrzywa: Mark Fagerburg this is more accurate yet it still doesn’t include the Monongahela River.

The Lower Mississippi River Museum in Vicksburg, MS, has a USACE model of the river. (Scroll down about halfway through those notes.)

I'm also using these notes to record information that is not location specific.

Hurricane Ida vs. Mississippi River

Sep 4, 2021

safe_image for Coast Guard Opens Lower Mississippi River to all Vessel Traffic
[Although there are restrictions on tow size and speed because sunken barges and storm debris are still being salvaged. But they have removed several power lines that fell on the river.]

Ida Puts a Dent in Grain Prices
A photo of flooding at the CHS Inc. grain terminal at Myrtle Grove, Louisiana, on Aug. 31. The CHS facility, with 6.4 million bushels of grain capacity, is the most southern grain export facility on the lower Mississippi River. (Photo courtesy of Turn Services and CHS)

The grain elevators on the lower Mississippi River "account for roughly 61% of soybean exports and 68% of corn exports."
"CHS Sees Minimal Damage at Terminal but Ida Could Affect Fall Grain Flows"
"As far as obvious damage and repair needs, Steenhoek pointed to the Cargill Inc. grain terminal near Reserve, Louisiana. That facility has 6 mb of capacity and is also capable of loading two ships at the same time. But the facility has damage to its conveyor system."

I include the entire width of the Mississippi River to show how wide it is compared to the size of a ship.

Satellite

Note that the ship has cranes. It probably imported "things" and now it is backhauling grain.

Satellite

Two screenshots from a 1:35 video of "Bonnet Carre Barge Refloating"  

Another day, another barge refloated! Eleven of the 18 grounded barges along the river bank near the Bonnet Carre Spillway have now been refloated in the Mississippi River. Salvage teams are using specialized inflatable bags to help roll the 297’ barges back into the water and clear the area. #storm21 #uscg #USCGIda

David Gulden shared

Warren Peace: When Harvey,et al, hit Louisiana, Then Texas, along the coast there were several barges at least a mile inland from the tidal wave..

I would have gotten a kick out of watching them being shuttled back into the water

[I wonder how they got the rubber rollers under the barge in the first place. Obviously, they were deflated when installed and then pumped up. A 297' barge is a big one.]

1, cropped

2, cropped
Plenty of black exhaust. Also of note is that they are tugboats instead of towboats.

 

About a half-year after the river was at a record low, it was too high for shipping.

Cleon Cole posted

Cleon Cole posted

And then it went even lower the next year.

JP Midwest Storm Chaser posted
Kristin McCutchen: At Melvin price lock and dam (Alton, IL) they have museum and tours of the facilities. And it's free.
George Depper: I live in Alton, Il, home of Lock and Dam #26. Lock #27 is know as the Chain of Rocks Lock. It is seperate from dam #27. Dam #27 is a rock dam which crosses the Mississippe River at the South End of Lock #27. The lower Mississippi River south of St. Louis gets more dredging than the upper due to the number of dams which can control the depth of the river.
Kelley Renard: No #23?
J.d. Young: Kelley Renard https://www.whig.com/.../article_8b6a8eef-9c56-51f4-a4c8... [I read the whole thing, but I still don't understand how you could put a dam across the Mississippi river for hydropower and not include a lock.]