Rain and Snow Add to Low River Levels - KWWL.com

Businesses in the tri states that rely on the Mississippi river are celebrating the rain that fell this week. The two and a half inches of precipitation this week were enough to give the river a much needed boost.

Officials with the Ursa Farmer's Co-Op say the extra rain just adds to the ongoing effort to keep shipping afloat during the drought.

"The fact that they've done the dredging and that down south already has alleviated the problem. We've seen in the last month that freight rates have dropped," said marketing manager John Benz.

Benz is hopeful the deficit in the river levels will be made up, with spring showers just around the corner. But this week's rain just wasn't enough.

"Two inches of rain sounds really good but when we're this much short in our deficit on moisture in a drought situation when we're down maybe 10 inches it's going to take several events like this to get things back to normal," he added.