Spring flood outlook: What led us to this point?

DULUTH, MN. (Northern News Now) - Duluth has officially been through the third-snowiest winter ever recorded, and there’s no telling whether we’re done with snowfall just yet. So how did we get to where we’re at now?

Here’s how; Duluth saw the snowiest December ever recorded and the third snowiest March on record. Spooner, WI saw their third snowiest winter on record, while Bayfield, WI smashed their previous record by over ten inches of snow. A mostly open Lake Superior provided plenty of moisture to bring reported snow packs of over fifty inches at times along the North and South Shore.

It’s officially spring in the Northland, and with a large warm-up and rain in the forecast, it’s time to prepare for flooding.

Ketzel Levens is a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Duluth who is also a part of the hydrology team. She says, “It’s extremely unusual to have this much snow on the ground, let alone how much snow we’ve had through the entire season”.

In fact, Duluth is currently in third place for the most snow to ever be on the ground in April at nearly three feet at the beginning of the month.

The amount of snow on the ground throughout the Northland contains anywhere between four and thirteen inches of liquid water. All this liquid has to go somewhere, and many lakes, streams, and rivers could begin to rapidly rise as soon as this week.

“And so if you take an average of seven to nine inches of liquid in the snow pack, if it was to melt in two weeks, in fourteen days, that would be the equivalent to having a half to one inch of rain every single day”, according to Levens.

There are still a lot of variables in play when it comes to spring-time flooding. The biggest factor in our risk over the next two months will be our daily weather. Unfortunately, our best opportunity for seeing low flood risk may have already passed us by.

“To be completely honest with you, the best-case scenario would’ve already happened. The best-case scenario would’ve been we would have a slow melt through March”, Levens said.

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