Experts at the National Weather Service warn of upcoming flooding across the Midwest. They warn that the Mississippi River could reach up to 10 feet above flood stage by next week. In St. Louis, levels of flooding could approach or exceed what the city saw in 2008. Emergency management operators are scrambling to gather supplies.

The weather service is predicting 3 to 4 inches of rain at minimum in a wide swathe across the Midwest extending from Kansas City, Mo., to Chicago before Friday morning and possibly continuing into next week.

The Mississippi has been in drought for much of the winter, so much that shipping and barge traffic were almost grounded. But it's been an unusually wet  spring and late winter, so ground soil is already moisture-saturated from snow and rain, which will cause new rainfall to drain straight into the rivers.

Mark Fuchs, a National Weather Service hydrologist based in St Louis, told the AP, "I'm worried. Major flooding appears to be on the table at a lot of locations. North of St. Louis, we're looking at the kind of flooding we haven't seen since 2008." On  Wednesday, the Mississippi was already at or near flood stage in areas north of St Louis, even before the predicted storm.

Forecasters in Iowa, where hundreds of homes were damaged across the state during the 2008 flooding, are also concerned. Authorities there are predicting "furious" rain at up to an inch an hour, possibly causing flash flooding in smaller tributaries, which may push into bigger rivers, such as the Mississippi and Missouri, cresting next near the middle week. The Mississippi is expected to be hit harder.

Some cities may be well protected by floodwalls, but others don't have them, and emergency management authorities are scrambling to bolster the riverbanks with sandbags. John Hark, emergency management coordinator in Hannibal, Mo., told the AP, "I'll go into a full-scale flood fight."

Another storm system nearby is compounding the picture. Western South Dakota and other parts of the northern Plains could be dumped with as many as 15 inches of snow by Thursday. The snow would eventually melt and trickle into rivers to the South, but not before creating icy, dangerous conditions that may interrupt transit and close schools.