Record flooding?

Hello folks,

It's been a little while since I wrote last, and considering I've been out celebrating a co-worker's birthday this evening and the fact I have to be up in 5-4 hours for work, I will keep this rather short.

For those of you here in the Red River Valley, you may want to seriously consider checking into flood insurance, especially if you live within the first 5 miles of the Red River. The reason?

The NWSFO out of Grand Forks released their latest forecast just yesterday for the Red River Valley, and many locations along the river may see major flooding by mid-April.

In fact, here are the probabilities that river stages could exceed the record 1997 stages:

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=fgf&storyid=23149&source=0

It's pretty clear that many locations along the Red River will see near to close to record stages by early-mid April.

This could potentially lead to catastrophic flooding for the Red River valley, including the Grand Forks area. We'll have to see how much more snow (or rain, for that matter) occurs here in the local area to see exactly how bad things may get. Until then, keep updated!

I'll try to keep abreast of any significant changes to the forecasts and will pass these along.

Edit: 03.15.2009 @ 11:18 PM CST