The Red River in North Dakota is slowly receding after hitting record fall levels in October from north of Fargo to the Canada-U.S. border.

According to North Dakota National Weather Service meteorologist Greg Gust the river at Grand Forks crested at a level 10 feet higher than it has ever been for this time of year. He says that adds 40 percent more flow to the river.

"That's was a big deal. When you start getting water pushing to the edge of major flooding in some cases ... there is more damage to infrastructure roads and that's a big concern just from damage that water can produce into the drainage system."

From mid-September until now the region has received more than 10 inches of rain over a significant area. And while it's too early to say how this wet fall might affect spring flooding after the snowmelt, it does increase the risk, according to Gust.

"The reality is that there is water on the landscape ... in ditches and on fields and of course rivers are running high," he said. "Most of our rivers are at the 90th or higher percentile for this time of the year, and in a lot of cases, they are at the 95 and 99th percentile. That means you don't often see a fall like this in a hundred years where you have water this high in the rivers. That means you have water in the system to start next spring."

Gust says a wet fall is one of several key factors forecasters look at when they begin preparing spring flood outlooks in January. The other components include winter snowfall amounts and the rate that snow melts.

"We've been 15 degrees (Fahrenheit) or more colder than average already for this time of year, and the chance that we're going to freeze up and freeze up deeply is pretty high. At some point, we're going to lock up water into the system and it's going to be sitting there, so chances are pretty good that we're going to have excess water in the system going into spring thaw."