Red River of the North
Discharge, cubic feet per second
 
Daily Mean (Average) Values
March 1st to June 30th, 1997
Day March April  May June
1 2290 2750 49,100 10,100
2 2280 3190 46,300 9560
3 2350 6350 44,200 9170
4 2400 14,500 42,500 9070
5 2370 18,500 40,800 9140
6 2360 21,000 39,300 8800
7 2340 22,000 37,700 7970
8 2380 26,000 36,100 6950
9 2370 28,000 34,900 6270
10 2300 30,200 33,500 6020
11 2240 30,400 32,500 5860
12 2250 31,300 30,900 5640
13 2210 34,900 28,900 5450
14 2090 40,400 26,700 5360
15 2130 48,900 24,600 5280
16 2160 63,400 22,400 5220
17 2150 84,600 20,300 5200
18 2090 127,000 18,300 5140
19 2100 111,000 16,400 5110
20 2130 109,000 14,700 5060
21 2140 111,000 13,700 5010
22 2150 110,000 12,900 4980
23 2150 105,000 12,100 5060
24 2170 97,900 11,500 5770
25 2180 88,000 11,700 10,100
26 2190 78,400 12,400 16,100
27 2220 69,700 12,700 18,700
28 2250 63,000 12,400 18,900
29 2310 57,200 11,900 17,700
30 2410 52,700 11,300 15,800
31 2580 --- 10,600 ---
Avg: 2250 56,210 24,490 8483
 
 Monthly Average Flow
 
` March April May June
Normal 2521 9968 5325 3950
Maximum 15,370 56,210 36,510 19,340
Minimum 42.1 954 373 151
 

Questions: 
1) Between which two days did the flow increase the most, and by how much did it increase? 

Between April 17th and 18th; it increased 43,400 cubic feet per second.    Students should scan the table to look for large differences in the data in order to save time. (rather than solving each difference)

2) During which day was the average daily flow the largest? 

April 18th; 127,000 cubic feet per second 

3) For how many days was the average daily flow above 50,000 cubic feet per second? 

Fifteen days 

4) How many times larger was the Average Flow in April, 1997, compared to the Normal April Average Flow? 
 

56210 / 9968 = 5.639.  Students can estimate (or calculate).  5 times or 6 times are both acceptable answers, depending upon the method of deriving the answer (you may want to ask them to explain their answers. 

5) The minimum flows all took place during the 1930's.  What historical event occured during the 1930's that would explain this? 
 
The Dust Bowl years occurred in the Great Plains during the 1930's.  Since students may not have studied History yet, or at least this topic in history, you may have to supply them with the proper information, or give them hints and/or access to information so they can find it. 
 
5) Use your answer for #2 to calculate how many gallons of water flowed through the Red River at Grand Forks on that day:
    a) first, calculate the number of gallons in that many (your answer to #2) cubic feet of water.  The conversion formula states that one cubic foot of water contains about 7.48 gallons of water.

127,000 * 7.48 = 949,960 gallons of water.  You may want to tell students that this would fill a swimming pool 100 feet square and 12 feet deep.  If your classroom is standard size (20 X 20 X 10), then it would fill almost 32 of them.  A good aside project may be to figure out how many of your classrooms this answer, and each of the following, it would take to accomodate that much water.  Students should also practice saying in English each of the answers to #5 and #6.

    b) the answer you found in step b) is how many gallons of water flowed per second. Now, determine how many gallons of water flowed per day by:
        i) calculating the number of gallons of water that flowed per minute:

        949,960 * 60 = 56,997,600  (fifty six million, nine hundred and ninety seven thousand six hundred gallons of water per minute)

        ii) then, calculating the number of gallons that flowed per hour:

        56,997,600 * 60 = 3,419,856,000 (three billion, four hundred and nineteen million, eight hundred and fifty-six thousand gallons of water per hour)

        iii) finally, calculating the number of gallons that flowed per day:

    3,419,856,000 * 24 = 82,076,544,000  (eighty-two billion, seventy-six million, five hundred and forty-four thousand gallons of water during that day.  This would cover an area of over 25 square miles with 15 feet of water.)
 
 6) The Average April Flow was 56,210 cubic feet of water per second.  Follow the above steps to fill out the chart and calculate the number of gallons of water that flowed through the Red River at Grand Forks during April:
 
Step: Answer:
Number of gallons in 56,210 cubic feet 420,450.8 gallons per second (avg.)
Number of gallons per minute: 25,227,048 gallons per minute (avg.)
Number of gallons per hour: 1,513,622,880 gallons per hour (avg.)
Number of gallons per day: 36,326,949,120 gallons per day (avg.)
Number of gallons in the Month of April: 1,089,808,473,600 gallons of water in April
That's one trillion, eighty-nine billion, eight hundred and eight million, four hundred and seventy-three thousand, six hundred gallons of water!!

How much water is this?
It would fill a soda pop can two miles high and 3/4 mile in diameter.
It would almost fill an ice cream cone 4 miles high and 1 mile wide (at the top).
A swimming pool 12 feet deep would have to be 18 miles wide and 24 miles long to hold the water.
This is enough water to cover an area larger than the state of Connecticut with 1 foot of water.

Also, show them this link on the web:  It contains three satellite images of the Red River during the April flood.  Another activity can be done using NIH Image based upon the images.  This activity is found on the teacher's page for Intermediate Mountain Environment activities.