As the Mississippi River at Memphis begins to recede, I share here a striking contrast between low water and high water.
The railroad trestle pictured here crosses the Wolf River about two miles above its confluence with the Mississippi. I took the top photo on May 5, 2012, on which day the Mississippi was at 8.2 feet on the Memphis gauge; much lower and it would have been difficult to paddle this far up the Wolf because of shallow water.
I took the second photo yesterday, when the Memphis gauge reading was 39.4 feet. At least in rough terms, a foot on the Memphis gauge corresponds to a vertical foot of elevation of the river's surface throughout this region, so it's fairly safe to say that the water is some 30 feet higher in the second photo than in the first.
I'll just add that during the 2011 flood, when the river rose just over 48 feet on the Memphis gauge, the water was up to the top of the rails on the train tracks. I took a couple of pictures back then, but sadly I can't find them anywhere.
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