Crop, Livestock Flood Risk Boosted by Heavier North Dakota Snow
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Heavy snow and rain in the U.S. Midwest may cause damaging overflows along the Red River of the North, where record floods in 2009 delayed or reduced planting of crops and killed 91,000 cattle in North Dakota and Minnesota.
Most of region from Montana to Wisconsin is coated in more than 13 inches (33 centimeters) of snow, on average, compared with about 8 inches in 2009, said Allen Motew, the director of QT Weather in Chicago. The area around the Red River has as much as 3 feet (0.9 meter) of snow, three times more than last year, and covering an area more widespread than in 2009, Motew said.