Manitoba Still In Trouble

The CBC reports that this year’s Manitoba flood to be 2nd worst in 100 years:

The flood forecast for Manitoba keeps getting worse, with officials announcing on Wednesday that the peak flow of the Red River in Winnipeg will exceed the flood of 1950.

The province’s chief flood forecaster, Alf Warkentin, said Wednesday the anticipated crest level for Winnipeg is more than a half-metre higher than what officials were predicting on Tuesday.

“It’s a very serious concern for the city,” he said at a flood briefing.

The crest, expected to pass through the Winnipeg within the next couple of days, is forecast to be 6.78 metres. Only the flood of 1997, with a crest of 7.35 metres, was worse in the past 100 years.

If not for the floodway diverting water around the city, the 2009 crest would actually be 9.1 metres, officials said.
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This year is an anomaly in that it will have three distinct flood crests, rather than the usual one. The first crest hit the city last weekend, when the Red River surged over its banks because ice jams impeded its progress.

The current crest was caused by a combination of rain in the past week, along with 18 C temperatures that have caused rapid melting. As a result, many of the rivers in southern Manitoba have become swollen.
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The North Dakota crest waters are expected to reach Winnipeg next week.

So, in 1950 they had a 100-year flood. The next one was 47 years later, in 1997. Now, 12 years later you have a third. The only reason things are not much worse is because of all of the work done to reduce flooding, for example, the diversion canal.

This has been going on for weeks and will last at least another week, before things slowly return to normal as the water drains into the lakes to the North.

As the larger communities along the river improve their flood control, they are diverting more water to flood the unprotected areas. There isn’t much that can be done about that without a massive engineering project that is too expensive to contemplate, or building restrictions that no one could afford to meet.