The Big One

In 2009, those of us living in the Red River Valley experienced what we thought was The Big One -- a record flood to break all other records. We had seen the peak of what was possible, we thought, and survived. Then came 2011, and predictions for the possibility of a new Big One. We got lucky. A slow, stuttering spring melt saved us from a deluge. The problem is, we never really dried out. It's late summer now and the soil remains saturated. The Red River of the North still runs above flood stage. Reservoirs are filled to unprecedented summer levels. The Army Corps of Engineers is flummoxed. People are afraid to utter the words they are thinking: Will the spring of 2012 be the next Big One?

According to professional geologists, the Red River of the North has only existed in its current form for about 7,000 years. Before that, it was a cold glacial lake among other similar lakes. Prehistoric people lived along the shores, notably The Minnesota Woman. Only because of a temporary climate shift did this landscape change into what we see today. Are we now witnesses to another shift, a climatic course correction?

The Minnesota Woman knew something that we refuse to acknowledge. She did not expect the landscape to remain static; nor did she expect the landscape to contort around her preferred lifestyle. Her humble life was based on adaptation to the land, not the other way around. Asking little of the land, hoping for a warm fire and a bountiful food cache, she left few marks; but her legacy is an important antidote for modern hubris.

The changing riverbank

Time is like a river. That's not just a metaphor. If time is impermanence in action, then a river is time played out with soil and water and vegetation. The channel is forever changing, the banks reshaped.

There was a deep water hole gouged out of the riverbed only yelling distance from our front door. Sucker minnows would school there, and the otters and mink would find it to be a fine fishing spot. After this spring flood, however, that hole has been filled with sand. The sloughing bank that was toppling trees and slowly creeping toward the house has stopped advancing. Now the river is sculpting the opposite bank, piling sand into a strange ridge pattern. Beavers are more active this spring than anytime in the past four years, which is how long we've lived here. That's not very long to a river.

The view from Grand Forks

Neat time-lapse photography of the Red River, January through April.



See the full-frame version here.

The view from Fargo

I had expected to have significant flood damage to report in the Fargo-Moorhead city limits. But due to the slow creep of the spring thaw, and the limited rainfall, the Red River crested lower than what was predicted by the NWS. The river level didn't even reach 39 feet, which makes it lower than the past two years. Both cities had been preparing for the worst possible scenario for weeks, even months. All of their diligent preparation paid off (see photos above). Therefore, disaster was averted. It really ended up feeling like just another major spring flood on a river that has one almost annually. There's your wet, silver lining.

The water runs downhill

The vernal pond in our front yard was growing by the day, fed by snowmelt and unable to drain completely because of the high river level on the other side of the levee. Oh, the transfer pump did its job and kept the shores from reaching our house, but those still waters run deep. Until last night. The river had ebbed enough to open the culvert gate and...whoosh! A stormy current of ice cold water rushed out to the river. The soil is still super-saturated though. Our sump pump in the basement cycles on and off constantly. It will take weeks for that to dry out.

The chorus of pumps

Last night, I heard the echoes of small gas engines running throughout the township, as farmers began to transfer pooling snowmelt from inside their earthen levees to the flowing water on the other side. Drainage culverts are gated and locked to prevent the flowing water from backing into farmyards.

I started my pump to join in the chorus. I ran it for a few hours until dusk. You don't run a trash pump while you sleep unless it's absolutely necessary. The pump could go dry and then seize up without the benefit of water to lubricate the moving parts.

Today, it appears that the south branch of the Wild Rice River crested around noon -- perhaps not for the last time. But a series of moderate crests over a period of days is better than a major deluge all at once. There also happens to be a river flowing in our basement from the saturated soils seeping through the foundation walls. The sump pump is triggered about every five minutes. I wonder when the basement will crest?

The flood is on

It's difficult to say when it actually began, because the slow overland melt has been occurring for about two weeks already. But the tipping point for major flooding surely was when the storm expected to bring snow over the weekend turned warmer and gave us rain instead. That's when the fields quickly turned liquid. From the air, I imagine the landscape looks like a giant thawing waffle, with the syrupy water overflowing from one section to another.

The field across the road from our house crested last night. It might sound strange to talk about a farm field having a flood crest, but this time of year, every piece of land has potential for temporary water storage. The road leading from our house to the nearest town appears to be safe. But the river continues to rise, first quickly, then slowly.

The view from Norman County

This is a common sight now. Rural farmhouses formerly surrounded by fields of snowdrifts are losing ground to an expanding lakeshore. It shouldn't be surprising or alarming. Migrating waterfowl have been using these "prairie potholes" for millennia. March has welcomed geese, ducks, and even swans to these temporary, cool pools. If tradition holds, the elegant and ancient cranes will arrive in April. It will be wet for awhile. All we can do is enjoy the view.

The winter that won't end

Our little river was rising significantly and turning into a big river until...until the cold March storm hit. It started as rain and thunder, transitioned to ice and then snow. Now the river is resting again, asleep until winter's claw releases control of the season. But the basement of our house continues to seep. I think the soil is well on its way to thawing out, even if above ground winter has the day.

The landscape is quiet

The wheel of time is creaking slowly on a frozen axis. Puddles form in the fields and ditches. Bare patches of grass are revealed on south-facing slopes. Tributaries are rising slowly. The day-melt and night-freeze cycle is good for sap flow in the trees and for moderating flood potential. But it is now spring and the seasonal precipitation is the final determining factor for the flood equation of 2011. As of today, it remains unsolved.

The momentum begins today

HYDROLOGIC OUTLOOK NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE EASTERN NORTH DAKOTA/GRAND FORKS ND

1158 AM CDT MON MAR 14 2011  ...SPRING THAW PROGRESS FOR RED RIVER OF THE NORTH...

...SIGNIFICANT WARM-UP WILL INITIATE SPRING THAW THIS WEEK...  A SHIFT IN THE LARGE-

SCALE WEATHER PATTERN WILL BRING A SIGNIFICANT WARMING TREND TO EASTERN NORTH DAKOTA 

AND NORTHWESTERN AND WEST CENTRAL MINNESOTA EARLY THIS WEEK. DAY-TIME HIGHS IN THE 

MID-40S AND NIGHT-TIME LOWS JUST BELOW FREEZING IN THE SOUTHERN PART OF THE BASIN 

WILL START THE SNOW MELT THERE. ADDITIONALLY...A COMPLEX AND POTENT SPRING STORM 

SYSTEM MAY AFFECT OUR AREA ON SUNDAY AND NEXT MONDAY WITH RAIN IN THE SOUTH AND 

SNOW IN THE NORTH. THE RAIN WOULD ACCELERATE THE SNOW MELT IN THE SOUTHERN PART OF 

THE BASIN AND ADD TO THE SNOWMELT RUN OFF. SEE THE 7-DAY OUTLOOK BELOW FOR MORE 

DETAILED INFORMATION.

The plain and simple facts

The floodplain belongs to the river. We can delineate it, map it, drain it, and dredge it. But we can no more do away with a floodplain than we can do away with gravity itself. Would a man sitting in a bathtub expect never to get wet?

We have altered the landscape to such a degree that predicting the severity of flooding from year to year is extremely difficult. Distant records are of little use; the land today does not resemble the land back then.

There will be a flood in the spring of 2011. But we are merely spectators, with a front row seat to one of Nature's most powerful Earth-shaping tools.

The snow/water equivalent

Click to enlarge. That's a lot of water to discharge!

The February thaw

A warm Chinook wind gave us a week of March-like weather a month early. It may have given some trees a false start, too, as the air temperature rose about 32 degrees (F) during the day and sometimes stayed there at night.

The snowpack was compressed and some water began to puddle underneath, but local rivers appear generally unaffected so far. The temporary thaw served as a window into the future, when March will soon be a reality. Everyone is getting ready, but Nature moves on a broader scale of time. "Where is spring?" we all ask each other. When I see geese, I will know for sure.

The questioning

It's that time of the year again, when the Grand Forks office of the National Weather Service begins to roll out spring flood forecasts. There is a high probability for significant flooding this year -- no surprises there.

2010 was the unofficial "year of floods" at our home. After the spring flood, we had periodic flash floods from rain events throughout the summer, and then another big rain event in the autumn. Add in a record number of tornadoes and swarms of mosquitoes, and you have a year to remember (even if you'd rather forget).

This winter, with its snowfall totals rising by the day and by the storm, is adding what will become inches of water on top of the soil still saturated from the previous autumn. Our insurance company informed us recently that when FEMA re-evaluated their flood maps, our property was determined to be in a zone more susceptible to serious floods than previously thought -- no surprises there either.

At some point, I don't know where or when exactly it was, I began to curse the people who built this house here. There are multitudes of better locations to choose from in this section of this township. In a floodplain such as ours, even a 100-meter shift in location can mean the difference between dust and mud. Why several generations of a family would choose to continue living in mud is a question that remains unanswered. In a sensible world, all parties involved with a vested interest, financial or emotional, would get together to buy this place out. Then, the land would remain a wetland sanctuary to the riparian plants and animals who belong here.