Snowmelt, rain worsen northern Plains flooding..

Source: www.msnbc.msn.com...

Massive flooding is occurring in the Northern Plains because of above normal snow melt and rains in Montana, Wyoming, North & South Dakota, & Iowa!

Historic flooding in the Missouri River basin spurred voluntary evacuations in North Dakota on Monday, while in Montana emergency workers ferried food and water to a town cut off by flood waters.

reply to post by smartbuddy


The flooding up here in the northern plains (I'm in North Dakota), is indeed high this year. The town that was evacuated was Bismarck, ND. I'm closer to Minot ie, further north and west, on the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers. The flooding at Williston is 28 ft on the Missouri River, a record. It has reached that height 2 times this year so far, and the ground is saturated. Any rainfall now just sits on top and runs off. We had another inch plus over the weekend, with more to the east of us- Minot, etc....

The cause? A lot of snow this past winter, a quick early season melt, and more snow and many inches of rain since that time. We even had a late season blizzard this year. Hopefully, today is the last of it for a few days. It's been raining 6 days on, one day off for several weeks now. Temps haven't busted 70 yet up north here, which is also unusual. In fact, it's almost noon here and its 47F. Brrrr!

It seems the entire US is having strange weather this year. I've even seen enough in the weather to know we will have an active tornado season this year. How would I know? I was born and raised on the northern plains. =)

Peace!
SK

UPDATE......
Just got the news that Minot ND is evacuating. My husband's coworkers have all been called in to town to evacuate, and hubby JUST got the news that they are all on call to come to Minot tonight to build dikes to keep the water out. He is a heavy equipment operator.

I just also heard that this will be worse than the flood of 1969, which my husband said was pretty bad. I also remember flooding on the Des Moines in Minnesota, causing my hometown to be under water.

That's all the news for now. I will use this thread to help the OP keep things updated.

Peace!
SK

Is the red river flooding Fargo yet? I'm sure if it isn't it will be soon. I lived in Montana for many years and I can say never saw the Missouri that high. Saw the Milk River where I used to live flood a couple of times. Stay safe up there.

There has been virtually nothing on main stream news chanels in the UK, throughout the whole of this flooding. Good luck out there, I hope your nightmare ends soon.

I'm on the other side of ND from the OP. All I really know about is what I am being told up here by those who are evacuating Minot currently. Thanks for the wishes....we will do our best. Yes, the Missouri is really high this year, so far it has hit record levels twice, with this time being far worse. The bad part is any rain we get has no where to go BUT into the rivers. Everything is totally saturated. More rain expected tomorrow night.