May 2023

I have archived the March 2023 water level chart (at left).  We experienced two large rain events during the month with the result that there was water flowing over the top of the dam for the entire month. The first storm which started on April 30th and ended 3 days later kind of caught us by surprise. It went stationary, ultimately dumping 5 inches of rain on us and raising the lake level to +0.77 above the high water mark, the highest water level we’ve recorded since we purchased the dam back in the fall of 2018. The previous high was +0.58 feet back in April 2020. We thought that was pretty high! At its peak height on May 1st there was over a foot of water flowing over the dam. Then on the 22nd we received 2.65 inches of rain which raised the lake level to +0.28 feet above the high water mark. All told we received 5.40 inches of rain in May, 1.7 inches more than normal. Despite below average precipitation in February and March, for the year we’re 3.79 inches ahead of normal on this date.  Continue reading →

April 2023

I have archived the March 2023 water level chart (at left). It looked like the dearth of precipitation that’s characterized February and March was going to continue through April, until the last day of the month when we received a whopping 2.52 inches of rain. The storm has continued into today, the first day of May with an additional 1.98 inches bringing the storm total to 4.64 inches! As of the end of April, accumulated precipitation for the year was 15.54 inches (it’s more than that today), fully 2.1 inches above normal for this date. At the time of this writing, this impressive overnight rainfall has raised the lake level to +0.85 (152.02 feet) which is the highest level we’ve recorded since we purchased the dam in the Fall of 2018. Peak runoff typically occurs 24 hours after the rain event, so I have not doubt that the lake level will rise higher. You’ll want to keep your eye on the Current Water Level Chart.

Here’s a picture I took this morning (at left) when the flows over the dam were around 268 cfs (cubic feet per second). Since then the lake has come up another 3 inches. I checked the level just before dark and it was up to +0.89 feet. The previous record water level  since we purchased the dam in October 2018 was achieved on April 14, 2020 topped and out at +0.58 feet above the HWM. We’re over 3 inches above that already! Chester Chase owned the dam for nearly 50 years and his son Tim assures me that he’s seen it this high and higher during the years he spent growing up in Whitefield. Albert Boynton, who was born in the red house on the dam and whose family owned the dam back in the 1920s and early 1930s once told me that he remembers seeing the lake so high it was running over the road. That’s high!

The flow numbers for the April 30 storm are impressive! You can see that the daily outflows in acre-feet (43,560 cubic feet) of water so far this year  (the blue line in the chart at left) have been pretty sedate so far this year until yesterday when they went through the roof with 605 acre-feet. Thanks to the storm, a wee bit more than 1 full lake volume of water (7,224 acre-feet) has flowed downstream so far this year. A lot of sediment washed into the lake during this storm, which is generally a bad thing. On the other hand, a lot of that water flowed right out again. It remains to be seen how this will impact our lake water quality this year.

I can write all day long about how high the water was, but there’s nothing quite like a video to convey an impression. I’ve already posted a video I took over at the dam yesterday morning. Here it is again:

March 2023

I have archived the March 2023 water level chart (at left). The precipitation deficit we saw in February continued into March with only about 2.5 inches of precipitation falling, well below the average for March of 3.77 inches. However, due to the excess precipitation we received in January, we’re still 1.5 inches ahead of normal for this date. March is when we start the process of gradually raising the lake level by adding stop logs to the weir, while at the same time trying to maintain minimum flows to sustain the downstream aquatic habitat. We could really use some extra water in March to help with this process, but it didn’t happen this year. Given the conflicting mandates in the Water Level Order i.e., raising the lake level to it’s full capacity by ice out AND maintaining minimum flows at the same time, it’s a rare year when we can accomplish both! Usually something has to give and raising the lake level to where it belongs in the spring is our number one priority. We did succeed in gradually raising the lake level about a foot over the course of the month to within 1/2 a foot of the HWM, by the end of the month. With close to a half inch of rain falling on this first day of April, we should be overtopping the dam shortly. No fooling! Continue reading →