Grand Forks is a city of 52,000 people that is located on the Red River - the border between North Dakota and Minnesota. The Red River cuts through one of the flattest expanses of land anywhere; the former bed of ancient glacial Lake Agassiz. This ancient lake bed now serves as the floodplain of the Red River and is represented by the red area in the map on the right. The Grand Forks Herald has created an in depth description of the environmental setting of the Red River Valley - to learn more about this click here.

Picture by USGS

The winter of 1996-97 was the worst the entire area has ever experienced. There were eight blizzards that dumped a record of 117 inches of snow in Fargo and 98.6 inches in Grand Forks. The following table illustrates a summary of the blizzards that hit Grand Forks and the amounts of snowfall that came with each one.

The final blizzard, Hannah, was the cruelest of all. The blizzard began with rain, which turned to freezing rain - the ice caused power lines to droop and winds of up to 44 mph leveled them. More than 300,000 people were without electricity - some for over a week. Hannah also provided the last of the precipitation needed in order for the amount of snow melt to exceed that of which the dikes on the Red River could hold back.

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