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When it was expected
The flood of 97' you could say started in late fall. There was lots of rain in late fall and then there was an early freeze locking all the moisture in the ground. -
Blizzard
“It was before Thanksgiving I know that, we had a real storm,” remembered Lee Anderson, who is the Fargo Public Works Director. “It was 12-13 inches, wind…heavy wet…you couldn’t hardly move it. And before we got turned around to get things cleaned up from that one, Thanksgiving came and we had another significant event." -
Continuing precipitation
Following the rain, periodic snow storms with moderate to heavy snow fall and chilling temperatures came. With subzero temperatures the snow was not going to melt soon. -
More snow
Another seven and a half inches and another blizzard on January 9th and 10th…and two more blizzards on the 15th and 22nd.
That pushed the season’s total to just over 75 inches. -
February
February offered a brief reprieve and hope that maybe the pattern was changing. 0nly eight inches of snow fell, at the end of the month with 83.4 inches falling in total. Locals thought that this was possibly the end. -
March Snowfall
By March, the snow was on again. A whopping 15 and half inches fell on March 3rd and 4th with blizzard conditions. At the end of that storm, there were 32 inches of snow on the ground. At the end of March, nearly 110 inches had fallen. -
Beginning of April
April was the first month where things began to melt. The snow had melted to just 6 inches by April 1st. -
River Heights.
On April 18, at 2:45 a.m. the river was at about 51.42 feet. The National Weather Service had changed its prediction to a crest of 53 feet. At noon on April 18th, the river had reached 52.19 feet. Then about 15 minutes later the first dike in Grand Forks gave out and people in the surrounding area were asked to evacuate. -
Additional Diking
Early morning on April 19th, the National Guard began diking East Grand Forks Police Department. Then taking more safety precautions, the city of Grand Forks orders evacuation of all areas in Grand Forks east of Washington Street. -
Final River Crest
April 20th, at approximately 7:00 am the river reached 53.77 feet. Grand Forks was 50% flooded with 75% of its residents evacuated. Finally the night of April 20th, the river reached its final crest of 53.99 feet. This was a flood that everyone will remember and one for the record books.
