Hi
I forecast weather for this area (the Red River valley or just the valley as we say) and surrounding areas....and yes thunderstorms are frequent in mid May to mid September period with locally severe thunderstorms with hail, strong winds mainly from mid June to mid August. Lightning shows are awesome as out of town you can see storms arrive from long distances and watch lightning from far away. We dont have much haze in the sky so you can view tops of far away thunderstorms clearly in many occasions. So if you like to take photos of clouds, this is a good place.
As for the weather....you will move obviously in the coldest part of the year. We have very changeable weather...with large swings from summer to winter....it can be 100 in the summer and -30 in the winter. Springs and falls tend to be short (with Springs of late seeming to arrive later) with a comfortable summer and long winters. We can get bouts of real humid and hot weather in the summer, but it doesnt last more than a few days.
Typically most years will see snow gone and ice off the rivers by early to mid April (each year varies a bit)....with snow on the ground to stay usually around Thanksgiving (this is highly variable though) but this is climatology.
Average snowfall is 40-50 inches but winds blow a lot of the snow around making for large drifts.
Here is a great write-up on everything you want to know about Fargo climate by two meteorologists at our NWS Grand Forks office....
http://climate.umn.edu/pdf/fargo_climate.pdf
Fargo is a windy place...so rare to find a day without much wind. South winds or north winds are typically the strongest.
Spring snowmelt flooding in the red river valley is pretty common...but most of the city is protected well with most years only bringing minor flooding some parks/golf course on the north end of town along the river. But there are plans for a permanent flood protection project for Fargo.
hey...if you love summer weather....why dont you attend a skywarn spotter class in Fargo. The NWS Grand Forks gives them each spring and shows what to look for when storm spotting, etc. check our webpage out in the early spring or late winter to scheduled talks....
www.crh.noaa.gov/fgf
Dan
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Moving to Fargo in January...please tell me I'm in for some wild weather!
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