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Any update on California lake levels?


bamabonners

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3 minutes ago, bamabonners said:

Wow.  All still low.  That's a hell of a drought. 

Low?  They are almost all above historical averages, the only ones that are low is Oroville and Perris

 

reservoirs.jpg

Edited by oldjeep
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Yes, lake levels are doing well. Folsom is our local pond and it should remain open all year. This is the first time in many years that has happened. They drain the lakes in the late summer/fall to make room for runoff from the sierras and other mountain ranges. The lakes here in Ca are for flood control more than anything else. The only lake that is unusually low is oroville. They have dropped the level lower than normal so they can fix the spillway without any threat of the water rising high enough so they have to use the spillway. We are getting our first good dousing of rain today. I'm pretty sure they declared the drought over last year. Last year was a WET one. 

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7 hours ago, oldjeep said:

Low?  They are almost all above historical averages, the only ones that are low is Oroville and Perris

 

 

I must be misreading... I thought the blue was percentage of full pool.  my bad...

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9 minutes ago, bamabonners said:

I must be misreading... I thought the blue was percentage of full pool.  my bad...

It is.  But these are reservoirs not lakes.  They fill in the spring/early summer and get drained all summer and fall for hydro/drinking/flood storage.  Bullards bar can drop a foot or more per day in the summer to supply hydro power for air conditioners in the Sacramento valley.  Shasta can be close (and the amount of drop accelerates as the lake empties because the shoreline circle gets smaller and smaller).

Although not on the link provided by @oldjeep (not ALL of the reservoirs are on that graphic), bullards bar is currently down 70' / 340000 acre feet from full pool.  But half of that 340,000 acre feet (170K) is required capacity at the moment for flood control.  It would be impossible/not "legal" for Bullards to be at full pool right now.  I'm sure many other reservoirs are the same, where they MUST be drawn down below full pool this time of year.  And this time of year, before the wet season, is when all CA reservoirs would be at their lowest.

And at 70' down, there's still plenty of fun to be had at bullards.  Not nearly the same thing as a lake.  

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I️ love this graph to show how sensitive my local pond is to inflow, especially in the spring. This is the only watershed for a very large area of the western Sierra Nevada's. The north and south fork of the American rivers feed Folsom Lake. It's no uncommon for the lake levels to rise 20+ feet in a day. You can see that we had 3 spikes last year. If they didn't have room for the water to control releases down stream, Sacramento would have flooded.  Ca dept of water resources caught a lot of flack for not keeping enough water through the drought years but as the graph shows, it can fill rather quickly. Those inflows are not even beer the historic levels that have happened. If there's a large snow pack in the mountains and a warm storm rolls through and dumps a lot of rain, folsom can fill basicallly overnight. Sacramento is inland but at sea level. With Shasta, oroville, bullards, and other smaller reservoirs upstream, they need to be real careful with releases to control possible flood waters. It's a delicate balance. 

To give you an idea of water levels, folsom is full pool at 466' elevation and imposed a 5mph speed limit, effectively closing it down at 400'. 

 

75790E57-DF48-4BD3-B098-BF4EBE325230.png

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Here's a few of the years prior. Notice, no spikes, and a few years the lake topped out at 425'.  Theres a way to get a multiple year overlay of those same graphs on one graph but i don't know how to do it. If only @IXFE was from Nor Cal, he'd have all this info plotted out for us. It's interesting to me to see all that data together. 

The graps below are 2015, 2016 and 2014. Don't know how to arrange them in order. 

D07EC2BB-1DA0-4320-BF1F-E2D45211C3BB.png

BBB6DD27-897E-42E6-B734-E716345BF8DE.png

5EF63D24-02B4-4D16-9BC9-6EB5DC20FBB7.png

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My lake is Folsom and we had an awesome year except for all of the debris in the lake at the beginning of the season.  It's tough to enjoy the lake with almost completely submerged tress floating in the water (as it was early this past summer).  The State did a great job of removing debris from the lake.

This link will take you to the site to view all reservoirs in California:

http://cdec.water.ca.gov/reservoir_map.html

 

This link will take you to my lake (Flosom):

http://cdec.water.ca.gov/resapp/ResDetail?resid=FOL

 

You can select multiple years (Wet, Dry, or any other year) from this interactive site.  It is a very neat site.

 

I have also uploaded images to my Box.com site from Folsom Lake taken this spring and summer.  I had my dog sit on some of the debris to see how big some of these tress were floating in the lake.  The parking lot in the images was under water for most of the summer.  These photos were taken at Brown's Ravine (Hobbie Ramp & Marina) as well as at Folsom Point ramp.  The photo with the red car is the view from my home and the brown spot in the middle of the lake is a debris pile floating in the lake this past May.  These floating debris piles would shift depending on which way the wind was blowing. 

NOTE:  The following link is now correct.  My original post included an incorrect link (sorry).

https://app.box.com/s/vw6bfk1fcpuevwkdgwn8i2forh8a4l1b

As I noted, it was an awesome year. Luckily, I didnot damage my boat this past summer.

 

Edited by P6Expert
To correct link to Folsom Lake debris photos.
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55 minutes ago, P6Expert said:

My lake is Folsom and we had an awesome year except for all of the debris in the lake at the beginning of the season.  It's tough to enjoy the lake with almost completely submerged tress floating in the water (as it was early this past summer).  The State did a great job of removing debris from the lake.

This link will take you to the site to view all reservoirs in California:

http://cdec.water.ca.gov/reservoir_map.html

 

This link will take you to my lake (Flosom):

http://cdec.water.ca.gov/resapp/ResDetail?resid=FOL

 

You can select multiple years (Wet, Dry, or any other year) from this interactive site.  It is a very neat site.

 

I have also uploaded images to my Box.com site from Folsom Lake taken this spring and summer.  I had my dog sit on some of the debris to see how big some of these tress were floating in the lake.  The parking lot in the images was under water for most of the summer.  These photos were taken at Brown's Ravine (Hobbie Ramp & Marina) as well as at Folsom Point ramp.  The photo with the red car is the view from my home and the brown spot in the middle of the lake is a debris pile floating in the lake this past May.  These floating debris piles would shift depending on which way the wind was blowing. 

https://app.box.com/s/5zr707e9mumby29wfjlz0iejqx2x6lv3

As I noted, it was an awesome year. Luckily, I didnot damage my boat this past summer.

 

Tell me about it. I lost two props this year. 

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3 hours ago, P6Expert said:

 

I have also uploaded images to my Box.com site from Folsom Lake taken this spring and summer.  I had my dog sit on some of the debris to see how big some of these tress were floating in the lake.  The parking lot in the images was under water for most of the summer.  These photos were taken at Brown's Ravine (Hobbie Ramp & Marina) as well as at Folsom Point ramp.  The photo with the red car is the view from my home and the brown spot in the middle of the lake is a debris pile floating in the lake this past May.  These floating debris piles would shift depending on which way the wind was blowing. 

 

 

 

I shared the incorrect link earlier.  

The link below should take you to the site where you can see the debris in Folsom Lake this past summer.  Sorry about the incorrect link before.

https://app.box.com/s/vw6bfk1fcpuevwkdgwn8i2forh8a4l1b

 

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I've only seen debris on Folsom as bad as it was this year, one other time. This spring was the result of 4 or 5 years of drought, the King fire in the Sierras, followed by copious amounts of rain. All the runoff wiped years worth of old dead trees down the hill. I doubt we will see debris like that for several years. 

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