Red River peak expected after April 15

Experts with the U.S. Geological Survey and National Weather Service say peak flooding on the Red River in Fargo will likely occur after April 15.

Gregg Wiche, director of the USGS North Dakota Water Science Center, says previous large April floods in Fargo have all peaked between the 15th and the 19th. The 1997 flood, the area's second highest on record, peaked on April 18.

Wiche says above normal snowpack and cold March temperatures have contributed to the late melt. This year had the deepest average snow depth for the last day of March since weather records began in Fargo in the mid-1880s.

The weather service has given a 50 percent chance of the river in Fargo and Moorhead, Minn., reaching 38 feet, which would be the fifth highest flood.

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