St. Louis River vs. Niagara Falls

Posted at 12:41 PM on June 22, 2012 by Paul Tosto
Filed under: Weather

The St. Louis River at Scanlon, southwest of Duluth, doesn't usually draw comparisons to Niagara Falls. But the deluge this week in northeastern Minnesota has the water running at a volume pretty close to the famous falls in winter.

The St. Louis runs about 3,080 cubic feet per second on average at Scanlon. But the rain this week has supercharged the flow -- It's been running at more than 40,000 cubic feet per second and topped at about 45,000 cfs, according to data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

Those are the highest readings since data collection there began in 1908.

By comparison, Niagara Falls runs in the winter at about 50,000 cfs.

MpegMan at en.wikipedia, from Wikimedia Commons

Here's the St. Louis earlier this week:

Courtesy MNDOT

The river at Scanlon

MPR Photo/Tom Robertson