The 1897 Red River flood took place in April 1897, along the Red River resulting in significant damage to the city of Fargo, North Dakota.

[1] Although the river gauge was not installed on the Red River until 1901, other sources indicate that the crest of the 1897 flood at a site 1.5 miles (2.4 km) downstream from the present Fargo gauge would have been 40.10 ft (with a discharge rate of 25,000 ft3/s) according to the present datum.

[2] Until the 2009 flood, the 1897 flood was the highest water recorded in the Fargo-Moorhead area and has since served as the benchmark for which many other floods of the Red River were measured against.

Probesfield took a measurement of 5 feet (1.5 m) of snow on the ground in an area which was free from drifting; a value 2 feet (0.61 m) higher than one taken prior to the 1861 flood.

[2] Due to the level of measured snowfall a flood in the spring was expected.