Red River crests north of Grand Forks

The Chief Meteorologist with WDAY in Fargo, says the crest of the Red River on the U.S. side is now nearing Drayton, North Dakota.

Manitoba forecasters were fearing that Fargo could receive up to 90 millimetres of rain in last weekend's Colorado Low. John Wheeler says maybe half that amount fell.

Wheeler says in Fargo they are actually "sitting pretty" as most of the heavy precipitation in recent weeks has fallen to the north and west. He compares the flood situation there to the one that rolled through about a month ago.

"It's not particularly threatening anything," says Wheeler.

He notes they had an ideal spring thaw this year in North Dakota and northwest Minnesota. Wheeler says the above normal temperatures back in mid-March took care of most of the snow, while next to no precipitation fell that month. But, Wheeler says then came the second winter as April turned very snowy, very cold and then very rainy.

According to Wheeler, Red River tributaries have had high water levels, however, he notes most of the tributaries north of Fargo have now crested and all of those crests were below the feared record levels that had been predicted.

"Initially the river models from the hydrologists with the National Weather Service reacted as though we might be seeing some record crests on some of these tributaries," Wheeler points out. "In every single case we did not."

Wheeler says in the Fargo area there were some sandbags used, but he notes this was done largely as a precaution by homeowners.

"Some of those were probably necessary in order for people to sleep at night, but probably weren't necessary in order to keep back flood waters," suggests Wheeler. "So we've come out of this pretty good."

The highest crest ever recorded in Fargo was in 2009, while the record crest in Grand Forks was back in 1997.