Fargo Mayor Dennis Walaker has a personal flood prediction model, and he's already collecting data for the 2011 flood season.
His system leans heavily on comparing and contrasting snowpacks over time and evaluating that information based on past floods.
"Right now, I have some visuals from northern Cass County down to Wahpeton, over to Wyndmere," Walaker said Thursday, the day the National Weather Service issued its latest flood outlook.
Walaker said he won't be able to offer any accurate predictions of his own until he takes another look at the snowpack weeks from now.
"Next time I go down there, I can see what the difference is," said Walaker, who said he came pretty close to correctly predicting the 2010 flood crest, which reached 36.95 feet on March 28.
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"I felt it wouldn't go over 37, and it didn't," Walaker said.
The flood of 2009 was harder to call.
"It really shook us up because it came so quickly," said Walaker, who added he is helped in his flood predicting by a team of observers up and down the Red River Valley, who go by the code name Team Red.
He said the group was once fairly large, but retirements have shrunk membership to less than five.
Based on what he has seen so far, Walaker expects a 2011 flood might look a lot like the 2010 flood.
"To say that we're going to go over 41 feet, I mean, that's going to take significant moisture in the next five weeks," Walaker said, adding that he is encouraged by recent weather.
"The last five weeks have been extremely beneficial, as far as I'm concerned," he said, adding that he is optimistic a significant amount of moisture in the area will soak into the ground rather than enter the runoff when snow and ice start to melt.
When it comes to flood predicting, spring rains are the wild card, according to Walaker.
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"Right now, every day the weather stays away from us, I'm happy," Walaker said.
Readers can reach Forum reporter Dave Olson at (701) 241-5555
