flood watch

NOAA provides a River Watch web site - it includes tentative estimates for future precipitation forecast in its estimates, so the long range forecast is uncertain

Right now, because of rains and melting snow, the Ohio and Missouri have bad localized flooding - as this water moves south, the lower Mississippi will rise, but the wave of water also disperses and buffers.
Right now, the lower Mississippi is looking at hitting flood stage, but if rain stays at the level forecast, New Orleans, for example, will not flood. This is in part because the upper Mississippi is not flooding - too cold up there still.
But, the snowpack in the upper midwest, as I understand it, is heavy this year, and the storm track is keeping lows tracking to pick up warm, moist, gulf air.
If there is a sudden spring that up north, with warm rain rapidly melting the snow, and if this is followed over the next 2-3 weeks by more rain over the lower midwest and Ohio valley, the lower Mississippi is primed for serious flooding.

I re-read some of Control of Nature recently.
The current configuration, heavy upper basin snowfall, saturated ground in Ohio Valley, leaves us vulnerable, this year, for a large enough a flood for the Mississippi to breakthrough to the Atchafalaya. This would be disastrous in the short-to-medium term for the Gulf States.
Odds are against it, you need some bad luck on the timing of the upper thaw and sub-tropical moisture washing over the lower basin, but the jetstream will wobble and things are trending towards a position where one might be concerned.
Something to keep half-an-eye on, I am not making a scientific prediction here, rather going "hmmmmm" after having been prodded on the issue of Mississippi flooding by recent random reading.
Hmmm.