Every once in a while, there are massive piles of snow in the Great North Woods that melt quickly enough to raise the river levels downstream. Watersheds from the Dakotas, through Minnesota to northern Wisconsin all send their water through La Crosse and we get a big flood every 10-20 years. This year was one of those years.
The “normal” river level in La Crosse is 6 feet. (“Zero” is 626 feet above sea level.) Flood stage is at 12 feet, and the highest level recorded was just under 19 feet in 1965. Yesterday the gauge nudged 16 feet, the third-highest level in history (highest since 2001).
An image of “A Simpler Time” during dryer times.
A popular photo subject at the riverside is the sculpture called “A Simpler Time”, portraying a boy, girl and a dog waving to river boats. I’m including an image of that artwork from dryer times to illustrate the “normal” level of the river.
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- The river gauge at Riverside Park reads 16.0… ten feet above normal, and four feet above flood stage.
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- A panorama of the La Crosse riverfront during the 2023 flood.
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- Drivers like to park along the riverside to eat lunch, but that road is closed today.
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- The eagle sculpture at the foot of State Street in La Crosse… surrounded by water.
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- A scene in Riverside Park around the artwork “A Simpler Time.”
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- The characters represented in the sculpture “A Simpler Time” stand in the flood waters of Riverside Park.
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- During the 2023 flood, most of the best parts of Riverside Park were left to the ducks.
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- There were very few dry places to sit in La Crosse’s Riverside Park during the 2023 flood.
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- Rozie found a relatively dry place to sit while waiting for her spouse to finish photographing the flood.
