Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog

Record flooding in North Dakota forces evacuation of 11,000

Posted by: Dr. Jeff Masters, 02:10 PM GMT am 22. Juni 2011

A 1-in-100 to 1-in-200 year flood is in progress in North Dakota along the Souris River, where flood heights never seen in recorded history are putting unprecedented pressure on the river's levees. The Lake Darling flood control reservoir located about 15 miles upstream from Minot, North Dakota, the state's 4th largest city, is full to overflowing. Record releases of water are occurring to prevent the lake's dam from overtopping. A mandatory evacuation of 11,000 residents from Minot is underway, and must be completed before Thursday morning, when water levels on the Souris River are expected to rise several feet above the previous all-time flood height, set in 1881. Massive rainfall in Canada on Sunday and Monday, combined with very heavy rainfall and snow melt over North Dakota over the past month, are responsible for the record flood. The Souris River Basin near the Rafferty Dam in Saskatchewan received four to seven inches of rain Sunday into Monday. Flood heights along the Souris River near the Canadian border upstream from Minot are already almost a foot above the previous all-time highest mark, and all that water will arrive in Minot beginning on Thursday, likely overwhelming the city's levees and flooding large portions of the city for two or more weeks.

Figure 1. Observed (blue line) and forecast (green line) stage of the Souris River in Minot, North Dakota. The river is currently at its 4th highest level on record, and is expected to rise above the record flood stage of 1558' Thursday night. The record was set back in 1881. Image credit: NOAA AHPS.

Figure 2. The Souris River (in pink) is part of the Red River drainage basin. Image credit: Wikipedia.

Heavy rains this week over the neighboring Missouri River watershed forced the Army Corps of Engineers today to increase the flow rate at the key Gavins Point Dam to a record 160,000 cubic feet per second. The dam was already releasing water at more than double the previous record flow rate, and the increased flow is expected to raise flood heights by 0.3 - 0.7 feet along the Missouri River from Omaha to Kansas City. There have already been two levee failures and two places where levees have been overtopped along the Missouri River this month, resulting in large-scale flooding of low-lying farmlands. "This continues to be a very dynamic situation and dangerous at the same time," said Brig. Gen. John McMahon, commander of the Northwestern Division of the Army Corps of Engineers.

The Atlantic is quiet
The Atlantic is quiet, but several models, including the NOGAPS and GFS, are predicting that a tropical disturbance capable of becoming a tropical depression could form near Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula about seven days from now. In the Eastern Pacific, Hurricane Beatriz is gone, after being torn apart by Mexico's high mountains during landfall. Beatriz is responsible for at least three deaths in Mexico.

Jeff Masters

Touchdown near York, Nebraska (StormTrain)

Tornado touching down less than a 1/2 mile from our location west of York, NE. The storm did miss the farm in this photo, but a few farms were hit and a train was derailed as it moved to the northeast.

Bellevue, Nebraska flooding 6/20/11 1 (Greyelf)

Taken 6/20/11 at Haworth Park, which is right along the Missouri River. Note the gazebo on the left 1/3 of the shot that I've made reference to in prior shots (5/28/11 when flooding first started and later shot on 6/13/11). The gazebo now has water in it almost up to it's roof. Of note, when I drove by again this morning on 6/21/11, the water had raised again after last night's rain. I'm never getting back into that gazebo at this rate.

Categories: Flood

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1201. Aquaimage13 05:38 PM GMT am 23. Juni 2011
Quoting Minnemike: missing a sarcasm flag, or a couple screws?... Skyepony, that is a pretty cool image, and most certainly shows them well. thanks for sharing :) Screws Loose huh? http://foia.abovetopsecret.com/ultimate_UFO/Advan ced/HAARPResearchAndApplications.pdf http://www.ursi.org/Proceedings/ProcGA02/papers/p 0936.pdf http://www.ursi.org/Proceedings/ProcGA02/papers/p 0936.pdf But our gov. wouldn't do anything like that huh? They wouldn't go around in the 1950's and spread deadly virisis for test. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgfxcuWq4oA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMgPi6_01FE Member Since: Oktober 7, 2007 Posts: 0 Comments: 21

1202. portcharlotte 02:01 PM GMT am 24. Juni 2011
Levi Are we headed for another year of Caribbean storms going west into Mexico like last year's repetitive track? Is that ridge going to be stronger than normal? Quoting Levi32: Actually that's not what usually happens in June. Usually they get drawn north by troughs over the eastern US, like the last Arlene we had in 2005. Member Since: Septämber 7, 2008 Posts: 0 Comments: 703

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