We are getting surreal scenes here. Our winter continues in the upper plains and all records are tumbling. It stays cold and just keeps snowing. Duluth is over 100" and will be higher after the storm raging now.
This winter in now approaching six months. It was cold enough in November to solidly freeze the lakes by the beginning of December.
The lake is still has about 3ft of ice and is covered with deep snow shore to shore. We occasionally have a little bare ground round the bases of a few trees, soon to get covered again.
Nights are still cols recently going into the teens and single digits just a few night ago.
The snow falls all winter have been heavily laden with water with very high water equivalents. So the sun and day time melting has caused massive ice fields to develop. The gutters freeze every night and water dripping off the roofs causes ice sheets. I have to use stabilicers (Steel studs) under my shoes even to go to the car. I decided to chance it on Friday and took a bad fall.
Thursday and Friday where like a post apocalyptic movie set. I don't think a Hollywood could have bested it. It snowed for 36 hours and we had 5" of snow. We had outburst of ice that stuck to the windows. It was dark and overcast with freezing fogs coming off the lake and hanging in the snow laden trees. This was quite impossible to capture with a camera.
This is breaking and will break all known records. A big one will fall Wednesday. We have not had a 50 degree temp here in this region this whole winter or spring. In 1881 Fargo ND did not reach 50 degrees F, 10 degrees C until April 17. We have no temperatures even close to 50 in the next 7 day forecast so we will blow past that one.
To top it off my tractor would not start Friday after the storm. With a lot of tinkering I got it started, but it did not run quite right. It did not start yesterday and I worked on it most of the day and got is running well. I hope it starts tomorrow afternoon after this storm passes. A big part of the problem is water condensation form daily freeze thaw cycles and working very hard this winter in very nasty cold conditions. I think the old girl is tired of it and wants to grade roads on sunny afternoons.
We have no data on when the ice went off the lakes in 1881, but 1950 was a long winter, but not as long as this one. Lake Itasca had ice off May 18, Lake Bemidji May 22 and Leech Lake May 23. There was a bad Red River flood that year, the Lincoln Park neighborhood in Grand Forks went under that year.
The flood hit Winnipeg severely in the middle of the night, May 1 during a severe snow and ice storm. It was the Canadian military's finest hour. They evacuated 500,000 in these frightful condition in the middle of the night. This tragedy led to the design and construction of the Winnipeg Red River diversion/flood way. It was completed in 1968 and at conservative estimates has prevented $50 billion dollars in property and infrastructure damage since.
Nowhere has the Red River started to rise yet. The Great Flood of 1997 breached the Grand Forks dikes April 15 and the downtown caught fire on April 17.
This storm raging now as I write this, and I mean raging, we have heavy snow and a howling wind. It hit almost exactly 2 hours ago and we have over 2" already. The heaviest snow will be tonight and the snow is expected to have 1 to 2 inches water equivalent. The snow will be even heavier over the Red River watershed on the ND and Minnesota side.
The weather service think there may be a warm up around April 26. If that is so then the Red at Fargo will likely be in flood around May 1, it won't reach Winnipeg until the latter half of May or may be around the beginning of June. The forecast for the next thirty days has a high probability of increased precip.
Everyone's nightmare is of thunderstorms and downpours before the snow and ice is out of culverts and drainage ditches. Worthington MN got hit with thunder snow and ice Wednesday, that took down 250 utility poles in minutes and brought down tree limbs everywhere. The Governor called a state of emergency for the region. I fear that will be the first of many.
Doing my research as part of the Mayors flood task force in 1997, I came across an account of a British trader/explorer who over wintered by what is now the Park River in ND, so the Park River/Grafton ND area in 1776. He told of a harsh winter with ice storms in April into May and of a bad May Red River Flood. This was corroborated by reports from Winnipeg of the Red River not returning to its banks until July 14. I'm afraid this year is turning out more like that than any other. We have blown way past 1950 already and we will blow past 1881.
This is not going to turn out well something tells me.
I have just taken a few pictures right now.
A couple of shots from my studio door.
Benedict Lake
But I'm warm and snug as a bug in a rug.
Trouble is what you see is the last of my seven cords of wood for this winter. However I'm leaving here Friday and fly to Montreal Tuesday.
Since I took and loaded those pictures the storm is making from the sou'east with much heavier snow and stronger winds.
I will take more pictures to morrow.
Happy Spring everyone!
