Flood level still moderate as Red River reaches crest in Fargo, says U.S. weather service

The Red River reached its peak in Fargo, N.D., early Saturday morning, but the flood level is still considered moderate, according to the U.S. National Weather Service.

Amanda Lee, a service hydrologist at the National Weather Service, said the river crested at 29.74 feet (just over nine metres) in the North Dakota city, which is about 225 kilometres south of the U.S.-Canada border, around 2 a.m. on Saturday.

That just missed the mark for a major flood, which begins at 30 feet in Fargo. Levels below that, but above 18 feet, are considered a minor flood.

"It's not quite as high as we were anticipating due to all the snowpack … but it is still higher than a normal flood year," said Lee, who is based in Grand Forks, N.D., just over 100 kilometres north of Fargo.

The service had previously predicted the river would crest in Fargo at 31 feet. The city saw its highest water level in 2009, when the river crested at 40.8 feet.

Lee said it will be a couple weeks before Fargo starts seeing significantly lower levels.

"It's going to be a very slow decline and that's primarily due to having … this fresh snowpack that we just received recently that's going to be melting and making its way into the river," she said.

In Grand Forks, the river hasn't been rising as quickly in the last day or so, Lee said. The service predicts it will crest at 41.1 feet there around Sunday evening to Monday morning.

The river level in Grand Forks is currently sitting at 40.68 feet. Anything between 40 and 45 feet in that city is considered a moderate flood.

Crest weeks away in Emerson, Winnipeg

Lee said the Red likely won't reach its peak near the border communities of Pembina, N.D., and Emerson, Man., for another two weeks. The river is rising steadily, sitting at 40.64 feet in the area Saturday and expected to rise to 46.6 feet by next Saturday.

Dave Carlson, reeve of the Municipality of Emerson-Franklin, said there's been some flooding on roads along the river, but it's nothing to worry about for now.

"It's kind of nothing out of the ordinary in flood situations, so we're not really alarmed about anything at this point," he said. 

"These are areas we expect to get water. So as of right now there is still access for our residents in those areas, but we do anticipate that we will have some voluntary evacuations in some spots in that area just north of Emerson."

Other northern parts of the Red will crest in late April or early May, according to the U.S. Weather Service. Lee said the main stem of the Red in Winnipeg is likely two to three weeks away from cresting.

As of Saturday afternoon, the Red River in Winnipeg sat at 17.15 feet above normal winter ice level at the James Avenue pumping station, the city's primary measuring point.

In recent years where there was spring flooding, the peak has typically been in the range of 17 to 20 feet James, according to city data. The normal summer river level is 6.5 feet James, the city says. During the 1997 Flood of the Century, the peak was 24.5 feet.

Crest timing unusual this year: weather service

Varying temperatures and uneven snow accumulation, including a snowstorm that blew through North Dakota this week, have made the timing of the river's crests difficult to determine this year, Lee said.

"Every year is different, you know, and this year has been no exception. It's been wild," she said.

While southern parts of the river will typically melt around the same time, and the melt will then gradually move further north, this year's thaw happened in "piecemeal fashions, where it would melt in some places and not in others," said Lee.

But that unusual melt may be for the best — if it happened all at once, flooding may have been worse than it is, Lee said.

"We're kind of looking at things not possibly, you know, being as bad as they could have been."

But heading into May, "any heavy rainfall could definitely affect river levels further, because they're already going to be running pretty high," said Lee.