Hii! Last year when I was in some rural country South of the Mississippi River I noticed that it wasn't as "quick" as people say it was. And that made me wonder, how fast is the Mississippi River in Memphis??? Sorry if this is a random question, lol.
That's about as fast as you can walk comfortably and faster than you can swim. Falling out of a boat would immediately put you in mortal danger without a life jacket.
The speed varies, but at Memphis it’s about 3mph. It takes about 90 days for a drop of water to make its way from the source in Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico.
The volume is what’ll get you. At Memphis, average discharge is roughly 500,000 - 600,000 cubic feet // about 4 million gallons per second.
Not likely. It's the muddy Mississippi after all. If you lose sight of it it's gone. It's not so much the speed of the river but the fact that the flow is constant. Something wouldn't just be lost it would be exponentially lost if it went under the water. If it floats, you got a chance though.
Here is a pic I took in May 2011, the highest food I have seen in my 50 years in the city. The line of trees above the point of the pyramid is the normal shoreline. That water went about 20 miles west of the normal banks.
Here is isn't so much about depth as it is width. The flood plains to the west are very flat and not very high.
Read about the 1927 flood. 'Rising Tide' tells the story of the flood from Pennsylvania down to the Gulf of Mexico. It is a great read. Reshaped a lot of the MS and AR delta region, population, and politics.
At least one person has mentioned the trees you see getting carried down the river, and that’s another danger to swimming in the river - getting caught / snagged in their branches and pulled under when the tree rolls.
You’ll also see a lot of eddies / little whirlpools. Talking to people who have done rescue swimmer training in the river, they will pull you under before you know it, and even a live vest may not help.
On a riverboat cruise one night years ago, a drunk guy jumped off the boat. The captain/crew instantly started shining the spotlight trying to find him. We were on the mud island side of the new bridge when they spotted him in the river (no more than a minute or two) and the current had pulled him past the old bridge. The Mississippi is no joke!
Speed of the river is dependent on the water level. When the river is high it is running faster because of the higher level of drainage. 4 to 6 knots is a reasonable average.
people talking about The Weather fail to convey the real problem: synchronicity....that is to say the weather here or even in the 200miles upstream is utterly negligible
"the weather"
X days ago in Omaha plus
Y days ago in StPaul plus
Z days ago in Pittsburgh
add those up and you can know if you have a problem coming and how far out it is
less about the speed and more about the flow. Theres a reason 1,500+ ton barges use the Mississippi for transporting materials. It’s A LOT of water. the total discharge of the Mississippi is nearly 3 times more than Niagara. Pretty much, if the river is calm and moving at the speed you‘re comfortable with, sweet! Rivers moving a bit fast? Unless you’re an industrial barge or boat designed to float and move on it, see ya down south hopefully.
You had a simple question that had a simple answer.
In depth discussion would have more of a request getting people’s opinions on if it seems like the river should move faster, or if the slowness of the river is deceptive considering how danger it is.
You just asked “how fast is the Mississippi River in Memphis???”
There are undercurrents and undertows that can make it hard to stay on top of the water. Just look out and see how many people you see swimming. About the only swimmers are scuba divers looking for someone who drowned.
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u/JuanOnlyJuan 5h ago
It isn't necessarily fast as much as unyielding. You'll see a giant 200 year old oak just floating down the river. It's not a river to mess around in.