DES MOINES &#8212 Areas of northern Iowa, saturated by days of heavy rains, began to see some improvement Thursday, but rain continued to fall and officials said flooding is likely in southern areas of the state.

State emergency management officials said they were monitoring the flow of the high water downstream and the problems that may bring in the days ahead.

“We’re watching the gauge at Stratford,” said David Miller, administrator of Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management. “It’s a good indicator for what’s coming down in the flows. It will increase over the next couple of days and the indicators are we will have major flooding.”

He said the biggest concern is with farmland along the Des Moines River between Fort Dodge and Saylorville Lake, north of Des Moines.

Miller said officials were assessing the situation to determine just how serious the flooding might be.

In Fort Dodge, where crews scrambled on Wednesday to shore up a levee along the Des Moines River, officials were continuing to watch the river even as it fell.

“The water level went down last evening, but because of additional rain we’re receiving there is a concern it will rise again,” said city spokeswoman Penny Clayton.

Miller said Fort Dodge continued to experience problems and that water was being pumped from the city’s storm sewers.

He said the sandbagging that was done to the levee should hold, even if the river rises again.

“According to everything we have, they should be OK as long as they don’t get a big dump of rain,” Miller said.

Mindy Albrecht, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Des Moines, said much of northern Iowa was spared expected heavy rains Wednesday night. That rain fell farther to the south.

That trend is expected to continue through Friday when drier weather will begin to move in.

“The bad news is more rain is in the forecast, but a lot of the heavier stuff will stay south across central and southern Iowa,” Albrecht said.

She said a half-inch or more was expected to fall across northern Iowa late Thursday and into Friday before a persistent weather system moves on.

“This weekend, Friday night and into Saturday looks drier,” Albrecht said.