Flooding in the Future

Cities along the Red River know the meaning of flooding all too well.

With the current lack of deep snow, what does it mean for this year’s flood season?

In 1997 Grand Forks was devastated by the flooding of the Red River.

El Niño bringing moisture to the area created snow-pack, and when spring arrived the snow melted too rapidly creating the floods. But what does it look like this year?

National Weather Service’s Mike Lukes said, “There’s not a lot of water in that snow pack, at this time but still we have a lot of winter to go through to build up that snow pack or as we call it frozen run off for the flood.”

Grand Forks isn’t the only place that has been impacted by flooding. other cities in North Dakota have faced the rise of the red river

Marie Monson who lives in Grand Forks said, “I used to live in Jamestown on the river and it flooded 5 or 6 years ago and Fargo and they have the dike here now so there’s kind of a sense of security…I’d rather live here than Fargo as far as flooding goes.”

Fargo had the major flood of 2009 and its left people on their toes.

Barb Wild who was in Fargo during the flood said, “It was a nightmare, thank goodness I was in an apartment, I know a lot of people had to leave their homes. It was sad, it was tough.”

“If we get a lot of snow, we get a rapid melt that would be a good situation for flooding,” said Lukes.

So far, Fargo hasn’t had that much build up of snow, and people aren’t complaining.

I’m okay with that, it’s time to have summer when summer comes, instead of like August“, said Wild.

While things are looking positive now, we all know that mother nature can quickly change her mind. And there’s a lot of time between now and spring.