VIDALIA &8212; With the hot and dry weather of summer and fall gone, the Mississippi River is once again on the rise.

The river gauge in Vidalia currently reads 26.1 feet, 43.4 feet above the mean sea level.

United States Army Corp Civil Engineer Tom Matthews in Vidalia said the corp. has had to stop with its levee construction projects above Tallulah.

&8220;We probably won&8217;t start again until next summer,&8221; Matthews said.

Matthews said the reason river levels are rising is because of the recent rainfall the Miss-Lou has had.

&8220;There have been a lot of cold fronts, and as a result, a lot of rainfall since the end of October, and with that comes a river rise,&8221; Matthews said.

Chief of Water Control Robert Simrall at the U.S. Army Corp. of Engineers office in Vicksburg said the average river stage in Natchez for the month of November is 17 feet.

Simrall said another reason river levels rise is because of rain and snowfall in the Ohio River basin.

&8220;When the northern part of the country gets this rain or snowfall the river will go up, but Natchez will not see a significant rise until about two weeks after,&8221; Simrall said.

Simrall said there is no way to determine whether or not the river will flood over the next few months or even in the spring with the snow run-off up north; but for projects to be affected the gauge at Natchez would have to read in the 40s.

If levels reach that high, Simrall said the corps. would begin flood fighting.

Flood fighting, Simrall said, is when engineers survey the levees and search for sand boils and levee breaks.

Sand boils, Simrall said, are areas where the river has breeched under the levee and water comes up from the ground on the opposite side of the levee.

&8220;If this occurs we begin sandbagging the affected area and try and stop anymore seepage from happening,&8221; Simrall said.