Risk of major spring flood jumps in North Dakota

The risk of a major spring flood has increased for residents in North Dakota after a dumping of snow this week.

The stormleft 25 centimeters of snow around Pembina, N.D.,the community just south of the Manitoba-United States border.

"They saw a lot of that new snow, a lot of water in that new snow, so their flood risk did increase. We're looking at a 53 per cent chance now of major flooding in Pembina," said forecaster Jim Kaiser of the U.S.National Weather Service, whichreleased its bi-weekly flood report for the Red River Valley on Thursday.

The risk of flooding is still high in Fargo, N.D. as well because of the snowpack, he added.

The flood forecast in Manitoba won't be released until later this month.

Provincial forecasters have said March is usually a snowy month and they anticipated such storms inthe last flood forecast, which came out Feb. 27.