The Mississippi River forecast has been revised and lowered, with the river now expected to top out at Vicksburg at 42 feet on Saturday. Last week, the Lower Mississippi River Forecast Center in Slidell, La., was calling for a Saturday crest of 43 feet, which is flood stage at the River City.

As of this morning, the river was running at 38.1 feet at Vicksburg, a rise of 0.7 feet in a 24-hour period.

A few low-lying, gravel roads just north of Vicksburg — including Long Lake, Chickasaw and Thompson Lake roads — have begun taking on water in places, said Warren County Road Manager Richard Winans. The nearby Kings Point Ferry, however, remained open this morning. The ferry, which Winans said shuttles only a handful of vehicles across the Yazoo Diversion Canal each day this time of year, usually ceases operation when the river reaches 40 feet.

“It’s a day-to-day thing at this point,” he said. “We might not even have to close it, but we’re watching closely to see where the forecast goes from here.”

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Thursday closed the four, 30-foot-wide gates of the Steel Bayou Control Structure off Mississippi 465. Steel Bayou is the lone drainage point for 4,093 square miles of levee-locked forest and farmland in the southernmost portion of the Mississippi Delta, north of Vicksburg.

Its gates must be closed to prevent backwater flooding when the river stage gets as high as the water stage inside the backwater area. When the gates are closed, however, any rain over the backwater area is impounded and can create flooding.

This morning, Steel Bayou was holding 2.4 feet of river water out of the backwater area, with the landside water stage measuring 83.2 feet and the riverside, 85.6 feet. With normal rainfall, the Corps expects the backwater area water stage to top out at about 88 feet by the time the gates of Steel Bayou are reopened around the end of May. Low-lying crops in the backwater arera begin to go under water around 86 feet.

The 10-day forecast from the National Weather Service shows no significant chance of measurable rainfall over the backwater area until the weekend.