Estimates are that 91,000 acres of cropland in the South Delta will be flooded as water accumulates upstream from the Steele Bayou Control Structure.

Gates of the structure were closed Sunday as the Mississippi pushed toward a late-season crest, still predicted to be 42.5 feet on the Vicksburg gauge on Sunday.

“We don’t anticipate any change” in the crest prediction, said Jeff Graschel, a forecaster with the forecast center, with reference to rain during the weekend.

The Steele Bayou gates are closed as the Yazoo River starts backing water onto the vast, flat Delta. Without pumps as designed for the project, but held up for decades, water ponds inside the levee and crops go under.

With the water already on the ground, the National Weather Service said the level behind the structure should crest between 88.0 feet and 88.5 feet mean sea level about June 1. If normal rainfall occurs over the Delta, the land side of the water should crest at 89.5 feet between Monday and June 10.

At those levels, 266,000 acres of the Delta will go under with about one-third of that total cleared for farming.

Farmland south of Vicksburg will also be flooded by the late-season rise.

According to the Mississippi Valley Division, which is headquartered at Vicksburg, the Corps has been using the flood control capabilities of its Barkley Lake on the Cumberland River and Kentucky Lake, owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority, on the Tennessee River to ease the flood crest at Cairo. This is where the Upper Mississippi and Ohio Rivers meet to form the Lower Mississippi River.

The Ohio River crested at Cairo May 15 at 50.6 feet, more than 10 feet above flood stage at that gauge location. Since that date, the crest has moved slowly down the Mississippi. Forecasters said the river crested at Memphis today and and should crest at Helena, Ark., Wednesday.