You know it’s a slow news day when all I got to write about is rain but I’ve been doing a rain dance daily for a while now and it is finally paying off. This afternoon a beautiful storm cell formed up and moved in over Clary Lake and sat there. It’s still there. I just checked my rain gauges (a coffee cup and a dog food can out in the yard) and we’ve already received 1.375″ of rain and it is still raining steadily and shows no sign of letting up. The ground is pretty well saturated so I expect a good amount of runoff on top of yesterday’s rain… and more wet weather is forecast for the next couple of days. Keep an eye on the Current Water Level Charts.
[UPDATE 1] We ended up getting 1.5″ of rain out of that storm. Channel 6 weather report is calling for heavy rains tomorrow, as much as 2-3″
[UPDATE 2] Both David Hodsdon and Tim Chase got more like 0.9″ of rain out of yesterday’s storm, leading me to believe my 1.5″ measurement included “splash” since the rain was coming down pretty violently for a while. Certainly, 0.9″ of rain is more consistent with the lake level rise I observed this morning. I’ll be revising my rainfall amount and altering my make-do rain gauge setup.
[UPDATE 3] Don Norman called to tell me the he too got 1.5″ of rain yesterday. I guess that’s the meaning of “locally higher amounts.” I suspect that the total average rainfall, judging from the lake level rise, was between 1″ and 1.5″
Thanks for your interesting posts George….
in reminiscing the other day ,Betty and I were remembering some of the now colorful reminders of why no one would want to own the rights to the Clary mill dam.
In our half century history of ownership and use of property on our beloved Clary lake, we recalled some of the animated and colorful arguments about how the lake level should be managed.
The damn dam owners were accused of loon abortion, beach disappearance, promoting boating hazards and flooding of potential farmland.
In the fall some wanted the lake Lowered to prevent ice damage, others demanded the water level raised to afford them a truck driveway from their shore to their ice traps.
In recent years the bass fishing cartel went so far as to propose posting the lake fish as being poisoned by mercury, so that people would not eat the game
fish – allowing them to get to trophy size.
one cottage owner wanted the lake level to be as high as it was in his youth when he could launch his boat from his boat directly from his boathouse without having to step on land.
Possibly we have reached the age when history should be forgotten, or at least conveniently and temporarily ignored.
Onward, forward.
yours in conservation.
David
the rememberer…
That thud I just heard was Henry clary , rolling over.
The Clary Lake Association wants to own the dam David and one of these days it will be ours. Having a DEP water level order on it that dictates a water level regime will take the fun out of water level management and won’t leave people with much to complain about. Then we can all just get on with enjoying the lake in whatever way we choose.
If Henry Clary is rolling over in his grave it is no doubt because of the way Kelley and Smith have botched their plans to breath new life into the mill he built.