The region saw floods in 1993, 1978, 1965 and the early 1950s, experts said. But this year topped all of those, with the Kickapoo River level at the community of Steuben rising nearly five feet above flood stage, two feet higher than the previous high flood of 1978, according to federal data examined by UW-Madison hydrologist Ken Potter.
Both Potter and fellow UW-Madison professor Jim Knox said that, thanks to improved methods of farming and controlling soil erosion, floods in the region have generally lessened over the past 50 years.