Clark Fork to Surpass Flood Stage – Orchard Homes Area on Alert

The National Weather Service is predicting that the Clark Fork River will exceed its flood stage on Monday.

Meteorologist Jennifer Kitzmiller said the river is already at 7.5 feet, it’s new flood stage.

“Over the last couple of days we’ve had quite a bit of rain in the area,” said Kitzmiller. “The rain coupled with some snow melt still in the upper elevations should push the river up. It’s sitting right at flood stage now at 7.5 feet as we speak, so it looks like we’re probably going to see things peak here this morning and it probably won’t go up much more than it is at the moment, and then we should see it gradually start going down here later today.”

Kitzmiller detailed the localized area most affected by the rising river waters.

“This is mainly over in that Orchard Homes area, more specifically up towards the north end of tower street and Kehrwald, so it’s a pretty localized area at this point,” she said. “It’s mainly just minor flooding at this point. Actually, we’re going to be sending our hydrologist (Ray Nickless) over there later today to kind of assess things and see who all is affected exactly today.”

The floods of 2018 caused major damage to that area, and due to their impact the flood stage was lowered from 10 feet to seven and a half feet.