GRAND FORKS, ND (trfnews.i234.me) Watch the entire spring flood outlook briefing from the National Weather Service in Grand Forks. Now updated with Weather Service forecast graphics.
okay so the bottom line up top is that of course there are recent and expected saw conditions affecting the valley now that is lowering the overall flood risk somewhat especially in the central and southern parts of the patient not so much in the north the threat for significant impacts will snow melts letting is still very high in the doubled lake basin where near record runoff is projected the threat remains moderate to high or above historical risk for most River points across northeast North Dakota into far northwest Minnesota especially along the femina and park rivers there are thawing conditions now and expect it into early next week and that should lower flood reps a bit mainly that’s going to be occurring in the southern Red River Basin now most of the southern reprobation will still stay prone to minor or low and moderate spring flooding as we progress through the string so in general to get the graphic across that I don’t have to show you right now is that pretty much all of the southern half or two-thirds of the river basin are looking at minor flood risk right now or minor too low and moderate flood risk and that’s from Grand Forks south across the basin but north of Grand Forks or eastward towards the red lake river and westward for the upper Cheyenne and up into the record rotation we rise from moderate to major flood risk still in there so mana along the main stem red river moderate flood risk at Oslo and Brayton going into a major flood risk or bad tamanna there is a major flood risk again in the Devils Lake basin into the forest river abs excuse me into the park river at Grafton into the femina river at mention I’ll go over just some sub-basin details and for the southern and central valley south of Grand Forks North Dakota these recent and expected saw conditions it’s early next week and an overall mild load snow winter in that southern parts basis especially what reduce available snowmelt runoff for most tributaries and for the main stem red cells and halsted south of Grand Forks there are currently large areas of snow free landscaping if you are looking at satellite imagery risk with me you you would note that there’s virtually wide opened farmland fields throughout the Fargo area southward into some peace nodes to cut into one central Minnesota over the next few days these warm temperatures are going to expand again ft exposed farmland into the Grand Forks area westward abyss into western Grand Forks County Eastern else coming the soils in the southern Valley remain largely frozen although the top layer of that soil will toss lightly there’s still quite saturated from late fall rains so high run off potential rates are still possible should any later snowfall or rainfall occur so that normal spring flood threat is still provider to low and moderate flooding at most locations and that’s children in Central Park valley again we we expect that we’ll get additional snowfall to the winter we expected a possibility for spring rain yet in the picture it is only mid-february for the northern valley that’s especially north of Grand Forks High soil moisture and especially high from summers throughout the early fall season so we’re looking at an area of a larger of northeast North Dakota into far northwest Minnesota that received from eight to 12 inches of bug normal precipitation from May into september-october so that arias has a very high soil moisture and base stream flows throughout that area are pushing right now very near the highest percentage the time of the year now granted the amount of water in a river at this type of years is fairly low and the expected amount is fairly low so water in a river at this time of the year is not what makes the spring flood but it does indicate with those high bass string close now if there’s a lot of water in the ground in the soil and in the system that is working its way yet to the river so with that minor to moderate flooding expected in most areas that that is quite in the central part of the basin with an increased risk for moderate to major flooding as you move up into northeast North Dakota at far northwest Minnesota for the very wettest oils and the highest snow pack conditions are phone the park river in Grafton could see flug very near their previous flood of record the Pamela River and edgy could see flows near or just below the 2013 lot of record one comment about Grafton’s is the current understanding for a flood of record is around 16 and a half feet although we know both in 1979 and then in 1950s that there were floods that had much higher flows that have occurred in the last 15 20 years but there have been some modifications to the roads bridges and in bridge system around there at this point there’s still quite a bit of uncertainty as to what happens as the potential for flooding could get above 16 17 feet what type of water starts to move around Grafton as you get above 60 and a half 17 feet so so that is still something that we’ll be exploring more deeply to figure out what the impacts can be at the Pembina river at neche pretty much that that pretty much tops out between 21 and a half pushing up for 22 feet and it rarely gets any higher than that now the levees around neji or build higher than that but it’s the spread of the water does tend to increase as you get up into those areas the doubled lake basin so we’ve got a very wet summer and fall along with a very high winter snowpack in fact near record snowpack across much of that central part of North Dakota has set the stage for near record run off into the lakes the record run off by the way into the lakes is held by 2011 with some 677 thousand cubic feet per second during that year though intermittent flow thawing heads or will occur most of that moisture is going to remain locked in the snowpack so those six to twelve inches of excess rainfall from the summer and fall of 2016 is still draining into those lakes the snowpack is near record level and so double Lincoln stump lake could see a rise of three to four feet above current levels so they’re coming spring runoff season okay there is some comic area in the background if you can please put your phones on mute roll ok thank you ok so again beige stream flows are above normal soil moisture and freeze up is above too much above normal frost deaths are generally running near or slightly below normal the frost under the heavy snow pack in the northern part of the basin is quite shallow in some places so it’s ranging from a foot or less to more than two feet depending on snow cover in the range which it came in the South basin so it has some thawing that is occurring on the skin level still has pretty deep frost in there in excess of of 20 inches in most locations again because they’ve been largely snow-free much of this winter the winter snowpack and sweet the snow water equivalent in that snowpack is ranges from very high in the north part of the basement Devils Lake basin with snow packs of 12 to 24 inches common in the north part of the base and again and even up into 28 inches or more in the Devils Lake basin and again that snow that has compressed over time so original snowfalls of 40 and 50 inches in some places these snow water in that higher snowpack ranges from roughly three to six inches in the Devils Lake basin three to four inches in the very north part of the basin we have right now in Grand Forks area about 78 inches of snow on the ground and 2.2 inches of water in that snowpack we have an increasing snowpack and snow water content is you go eastward toward Crookston and pointy we have somewhat lesser snowpack just immediately west of us here in Grand Forks but moving south it drops off dramatically so we have trace amounts two three four five inches of snow in some areas between here and Hillsboro but it drops off to hear nothing from there on and with inch of water or less and most of that selfie snowpack from originally now there was snow there but of course it’s been very mild and most of that has melted out so again the last part of winter now into early spring should be fairly high degree of variability in the climate regime we are expecting March this excuse me this warm condition to persist here through the middle part of February’s about next Wednesday Thursday will start dropping back routinely below freezing right now we’re going to be warming up to this weekend early to next week where our nighttime lows for a great part of the basin are going to stay above freezing that’s going to mean that even tomorrow we’re going to start seeing more open water flow in the extreme south part of the basin and we could be seeing the Buffalo River and far southern tributaries actually starting to push up toward minor flooding even as far as Fargo by early next week but will address that tomorrow and probably get some of that information of the areas north of there north of Fargo and certainly the upper cheyenne is start moving at that point but those will continue to thaw and move water toward the river system so you’re going to see the snowmelt that has occurred on the fields over the last few days moving into the ditches from the ditch network into the streams so that’s going to start positioning itself and moving for the rivers as that moves towards the tributaries in the early part of the next week the red will get some of that flow as we said toward Fargo but from points north it’s really not going to open up the Red River and some of that water is going to move on top of existing ice and later next week could refreeze so we aren’t expecting the Red River to open up certainly not comfortable to pinpoint store as you get Halstead and points north toward grand pork most of those strings should still remain frozen but we’ll be watching those temperatures closely the snowpack again and the snowmelt that’s occurring will largely stay locked in the snowpack or right on the skin layer and likely not slow appreciably into digits so that would still be poised for later melting so again that’s through middle of next week and then temperatures should start dropping and trending down again and slowing the whole process as we go from light wre into the first week of March we’re expecting to be moving toward near to even slightly below normal temperatures and then for the month of March the Climate Prediction centers new outlook released today has the tendency for cooler and wetter conditions basically North Dakota and across into Montana and then for the entire period March April May starting to trend then toward milder near normal temperatures into April and made with wetter conditions or we’re all expected across the area so again winter is not over we would expect rainfall we do have a quarter would ensure more of rain in the forecast for next Monday that’s rain in the forecast for next Monday februari and then from that later next week we expect some snow closer to the Canadian border we’re going to have some random snow mix on Monday so there lots of excitement and things going on the good news again to summarize it in the South basin that’s all running off now and getting ready to position into the rivers this week we’ll see some opening up eventually that will freeze back down next week and we’ll see what else happens after that middle part of the basin you’re going to see again wide opening up and a lot of moisture moving toward ditches and into the smaller stream network but not yet hitting the larger tributaries and not into Karev further north you’re going to see that smells occurring but sitting into that snowpack and locking up and again big threat areas are going to be buoyed those points north of Grand Forks a little bit on the two rivers moving toward a lock certainly on the the forest river not looking too bad but the park river looking pretty dramatically bad and tamanna river especially at Nettie should see some pretty significant flow there and then that all contributes to the north end of the Red River so by the time you kids from great enough to pembun i’ll be picking up that increased glow and pushing that into major flood stage Devils Lake basin again near record were not potential with very wet conditions from last year and that water moving into the system as well as near record snow pack so a lot of water move there the 2009-11 year had 677 acre feet of money aside cubic feet what acre feet of water that moved through that year actually what the additions expected this spring under those that same amount of preparation and we might actually not see 2011 look as bad 2009 which had a lesser overall threat that year produced higher flows because the later spring nasty 2004 was one of the nastiest spring scenarios for Northeast North Dakota and that was when a large area of two to four inches of rain kicked in on March 22nd 23rd and rivers again the forest river the park river the femina river went ballistic and then of course any large-scale inflows into Devils Lake from that so hopefully we won’t see that materialized that’s at the top end of the spectrum for nasty possibilities in the background any questions from our emergency managers that may still be on the phone well get the media here in a Quentin in a bit here any from our agency partners that are on the phone here does anybody still on the phone yes we’re just on Harry Gregg okay okay okay all right thank you any media questions and they have one in the room here Neil so can you kind of summarize which North Dakota towns are at the most risk or major flooding the springs well of course the Devils Lake area itself has permanent flood protection and infrastructure in place so that’s not necessarily threatening the communities though again you’ll see some effect in those communities with with the water table rising again in response to this and the effect that has on on reducing travel around some of the area with the increased water spill so that’s not necessarily a threat directly to the community but the forest river I keep saying for server the forest river right now if the Minto doesn’t look that bad but I would we’ll have to watch that closely so right now I’m not looking too bad just again the minor to moderate threat there the park river in tagrapha that has a huge amount of runoff potential there and of course there’s the three branches that come into that area there’s a lot of down timber from these severe storms through the summer into those rivers as well that will be plugging things up so so that’s got a lot of things that looking after looking at it then up in the Pembina river the upper parts the Pembina right now aren’t looking so bad so the flows coming out of Canada don’t look to be near as much as what will be picked up locally so the counter over into walhalla not looking is that right now but net she is one that it all comes together and one might think how about you Sheyenne River Valley into gemstone I’ll just add one more thing on the north end and of course tamanna will be picking up that slow plus the red river flow in higher flows so it’s not a big threats of diking at the seminar st. Vincent but it’s something that allows you watch there now into the Cheyenne River the upper Cheyenne has a lot of snow pack on there and a lot of runoff potential with the wet soils from this last summer there are what are called non-contributing Ares normal areas that normally don’t run off so they’ll still hold some of that and it won’t necessarily make it into the Cheyenne River itself excuse me lamb but there will be a fair amount of flow coming out of that upper Cheyenne Dalton cooperstown into ball go down clapping so right now into Valley City the expectation is that management of the dam will be able to control that hmm and so from Valley City southward minor the low and moderate flooding still the main trust but that’ll be that’ll be again if there are heavy rain events or something that would would affect the operation of that it could be touchy but there will be a fair amount of flow coming in to Bald Hill down and they’ll be metering that through since the lower part of the Cheyenne is is is pretty much the snow is off and most of that lower part is going to be able to move on system you
Exclusive Video: Updated GF WX Service Spring Flood Outlook with New Graphics
