Fargo area hoping for a routine spring after severe flooding of years' past

The Red River of the North's expected crest of 34.5 feet in Fargo on Sunday or Monday could rank among the region's top 10 worst flood incidents.

That sounds like bad news, but officials along the Minnesota-North Dakota border are optimistic the spring flood season will be relatively routine.

Since the record 2009 flood saw the Red River rise to nearly 41 feet and officials used 6.5 million sandbags in a desperate measure to halt flooding, the region has undertaken many flood mitigation measures. There are new dikes and pumps throughout the Fargo-Moorhead region, and completed parts of the massive FM Area Diversion Project — due to be completed in 2027, including a 30-mile diversion channel and a 20-mile earthen embankment, plus levees, floodwalls and stormwater lift stations — will help.

Those measures, plus what a Fargo city engineer calls an "ideal melt situation" despite this year's late thaw, has government officials feeling optimistic.

"We think a little luck happened — the dry fall meant the soil absorbed some of it, plus what we term the 'perfect melt,' freezing at night then thawing in the daytime," Fargo Mayor Tim Mahoney said. "Nature sometimes helps us out."

A couple weeks ago, when an 18-inch snowfall was in the forecast, officials were worried. But that snowfall only dropped six inches, and unique snowmelt patterns — the Minnesota side melted first, while the North Dakota side is mid-thaw — meant the river systems took on water gradually.

Bob Zimmerman, city engineer for Moorhead, said the predicted crest would bring a "significant but very manageable event." The bridge spanning the Red River from 15^th Avenue N. in Moorhead to 12^th Avenue N. in Fargo closed Wednesday, he said, but residents expect that bridge to close during spring flooding.

"It's primarily going to be disruption to traffic," Zimmerman said. "There shouldn't be any significant property damage because of the improvements both cities have made. This is a matter of routine, well within what we've seen in the past."

Significant rainfall in the next week, he noted, could shift that prognosis. According to the National Weather Service, a moderate amount of rain and snow is forecast for Fargo in the coming days.

Eighty-some miles north of Fargo, the Grand Forks region was feeling similar optimism about the north-flowing river.

In Polk County, the northwestern Minnesota county bordering Grand Forks, N.D., the huge amount of snowfall this winter had an especially high water content — about four inches. But the region appears to have gotten lucky: An especially dry fall meant winter frost didn't go deep into the dry soil, and snow insulated the ground from freezing.

Jody Beauchane, emergency management director for Polk County in Crookston, Minn., said about three-fourths of the thawing snow soaked into the ground, not even making it to drainage systems.

"We had enough water content that it could have done a lot of damage," Beauchane said. "If we had frost that went deep, we had a lot of water that could have moved. We dodged a bullet."

Beauchane expects a flood season that is, at worst, a normal flood season. Three county roads had been shut down Tuesday, and nine more were under caution, typical for this time of year, he said.

East Grand Forks declared a flood emergency Tuesday, but that's standard procedure when the Red River of the North hits 27 feet there. It's expected to crest around 43 feet next week, bringing moderate flooding. The biggest concern in the area, Beauchane said, was potential ice jams from the Red Lake River in Crookston, Fisher or East Grand Forks.