OHIO RIVER RECEDING: As predicted, the Ohio River crested around 31 feet today and the water level is heading back down. According to data from the National Weather Service, the river crested at Marietta at 31.04 feet around 2 p.m. The forecast for the rest of the week calls for the river level to drop below 22 feet by Saturday. “We’re looking at pretty dry conditions for the rest of the week, so it should continue to go down,” said Simone Lewis, a meteorologist with the weather service in Charleston, W.Va. “The only flooding that we had along the Ohio was actually south of you, south and west, places like Huntington and Point Pleasant, (W.Va.),” she said. Any snow remaining on the ground north of the Valley should melt this week but not so fast that it will cause river levels to rise, Lewis said. “It should be a fairly gradual melt because you’re going to be looking at warm days and pretty cool nights,” she said. The Muskingum River at McConnelsville crested at 9.9 feet.