Wednesday's rainfall - along with more rain in the forecast for the weekend - will slow the fall of the levels on the Missouri River, but it shouldn't cause the river to rise again, according to National Weather Service hydrologist Mark Fuchs in St. Louis.
Fuchs said the NWS expected 3-4 inches of rain would fall in the Jefferson City area through Wednesday.
After falling nearly 3 feet since Friday, from 33.2 feet to 30.9 feet on Wednesday afternoon, the Missouri River was forecast to continue falling, only at a slower rate, Fuchs said.
The Wednesday afternoon forecast showed the river would eventually drop to the flood stage of 23 feet by June 21.
On the Osage River, however, levels were expected to go back up after releases from Bagnell Dam in Lake Ozark started Tuesday night.
Ameren Missouri officials announced at approximately 8:30 a.m. Wednesday that they had increased the flow through the Bagnell Dam flood gates from 40,000 cubic feet per second to 50,000 cfs.
Bagnell has been monitoring Truman Dam in Warsaw, farther up on the Osage River, where officials had raised its flow to 60,000 cfs as of Wednesday afternoon.
Ameren officials said they did not know when of if they would raise the discharge levels at Bagnell in the near future, with that decision depending on whether there is "significant rainfall" over the weekend at the Lake of the Ozarks.
The NWS forecast shows 4-5 inches of rain could fall in the Lake of the Ozarks area by Wednesday.
The NWS forecast for the Osage River at Mari-Osa-Delta on Wednesday predicted the river would rise about half a foot by today, from 28 feet to 28.4 feet. Flood stage is 19 feet.
Jefferson City Operations Manager Britt Smith said he was disappointed the river didn't get down another foot by Wednesday afternoon like they had hoped it would.
"It was great to see the drop in levels we had over the weekend and the first part of the week," Smith said. "That allowed us to reopen streets such as West Main in The Millbottom and Kansas Street by Washington Park."
Jefferson City staff are making sure they have what they need in place to start cleaning things up after the water recedes.
"We're actually looking at two different plans - one for south of river and one for north of river," Smith said. "When you look at the south, we're talking about having (street sweepers and other equipment) ready to move in to clear debris from streets and other public places.
"On the north side, we have a few more things to consider. There are four to five homes that have been flooded. We don't know how many holes are in the Capital View Levee and what it will take to repair that."
Smith said the city's sewer treatment facility north of the river has stayed in good shape, as it was raised to a higher level after the Flood of 1993.
"We're going to have to go through the control tower, terminal and two maintenance buildings at the (Jefferson City Memorial) Airport that have been flooded, but we're not expecting much damage in the maintenance buildings," he said. "From what we can tell, the tower and terminal never got completely full of water. There was 2 or 3 feet of water in the terminal building."