April 2022

I have archived the April 2022 Water Level Chart (at left). April has been a very cold, very wet, and very windy month! The above-average precipitation with which we started the year has continued through April in a big way: we received fully 5.64 inches of rain in April or 1.77 inches more than the normal rainfall of 3.87 inches, fully 3.78 inches beyond where we would normally be on this date. We have received literally 5 months of precipitation in only 4. Impressive.

Not surprisingly, the lake level remained high for the month, staying somewhere between the top of the dam and the HWM for most of the month. It was quite stable really, fluctuating only a little over 4.5 inches from high to low. Only twice during the month did the water level rise above the high water mark, and at that only briefly. I love stopping by the dam and seeing water dribbling over the top of it. Continue reading →

March 2022

I have archived the March 2022 Water Level Chart (at left). The above-average precipitation with which we started the year did not continue into March, the month’s precipitation of 3.31 inches fell about 1/2″ short of the normal 3.77 inches for March. However, despite the shortfall (if you can call it that), we’re still a solid 2″ above normal for this date and the lake level in March reflects that rainy trend. Our management goal in late winter/early spring is to raise the lake level up to high spring time levels. This year we just got there a little faster than in recent years, actually overtopping the dam in late February. The lake level exceeded the HWM briefly on March 23rd. You can see this year’s water level compared with water levels from 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 on our Current Clary Lake Water Level Charts page (see the 4th chart down). Continue reading →

February 2022

I have archived the February 2022 Water Level Chart (at left). The above-average precipitation with which we started the year (January ended 0.93″ above normal) has continued throughout the month of February which saw a total of 4.16″ of precipitation (water), the effect of which has been to put us fully 2.48″ above normal for the year to date. This bodes well for ground water supplies this spring, in marked contrast to the last 3 or 4 years. We’ll have to wait and see if the cycle of summer drought has been broken. All the rain and snow we received in February resulted in the lake level rising to unseasonably HIGH levels, overtopping the dam on February 23rd and coming to within half an inch of the HWM on the 25th. Continue reading →

Everyone knows I love charts (and maps!). They’re a great way of visualizing data. Sometimes my love of maps and charts takes me to some  pretty strange places. Here’s an example of one of those places (at left). Every time I look at this chart I have to stop and peer at it for a moment before it makes sense. Every time. And some days it just doesn’t make sense no matter how long I stare at it. This particular chart shows the water level of Clary Lake on February 8th, 2022 and the elevation of the water line on that date is 149.88 feet, or 1.29 feet below the HWM. What this chart is actually showing us is the distance the lake surface is below the top of the dam, at any place along the top of the dam, starting at the left (0 feet) and proceeding to the right (98 feet). Continue reading →

January 2022

I have archived the January 2022 Water Level Chart (at left), starting off the new year with more snow on the ground than I can remember seeing for several years. Compared to recent winters, this condition bodes well for our ground water supply come spring the ground thaws this spring and the snow melts.

Our general dam management goal in the winter is to maintain a lake level somewhere around 18 inches below the HWM. This is low enough to prevent ice damage to the shoreline around the lake yet still high enough to maintain outflows sufficient to meet the minimum flows requirement of the Clary Lake Water Level Order. To that end, we’ve been successful: the lake level is currently around -1.41 feet and outflows are around 13 cfs (cubic feet per second), slightly higher than the current minimum flows which of 11.3 cfs. If you’re unclear about minimum flows, what they are, and why we are supposed to maintain them, see Minimum Flows Explained.

December 2021

I have archived the December 2021 Water Level Chart (at left), bringing 2021 to a close. Our general goal in December is to get the lake down to about 18 inches by the time it freezes over, without overshooting the mark. We have after all only 24 inches to play with. As it turns out, the lake froze over on December 20th with the lake level down just 1 foot. Precipitation for the month was 3.44 inches, average for December, bringing us to 46.18 inches for the year, 2.12 inches more than average. It is only because of the excessive rainfall we received in July (9 inches) and September (8.5 inches) that we ended the year a bit ahead of average precipitation because for most of the rest of the year, we fell short of monthly averages. And that’s about all I’m going to say about December. It’s a New Year.

One big difference between 2020 and 2021 turned out to be the flushing rates and retention times. In 2020 we had a flushing rate of about 2.3x with a retention time of 140 days. In 2021 the flushing rate was 1.8x (the same as the published rate for Clary Lake) with a retention time of 240 days. This is in effect a measure of the amount of water that passed through Clary Lake: in 2020, a total of 16,632 acre feet of water passed through the lake, in 2021 that figure was  significantly less, only 13,274 acre feet. The lower flushing rate in 2021 very likely had a beneficial effect on water quality.

[UPDATE]: I was so intrigued with the difference in flushing rate and retention time for 2020 and 2021 that I decided to graph them to make the differences more evident. Here’s the result:

I’ll add data for 2022 as it becomes available.

I can’t end 2021 without highlighting an interesting but ultimately useless bit of data analysis I wasted time on this year. Everyone knows that I love charts. If you don’t know that by now, then you simply haven’t been paying attention! I’d like to show you two fascinating but useless charts I made this year. First a bit of explanation. I have long thought it would be cool if I could somehow correlate the flows from Clary Lake with the flows in the Sheepscot River as measured at the Sheepscot River Gaging Station which is located at the foot of Grand Army Hill. It turns out you really can’t correlate the two flows in any reasonable fashion for two primary reasons. First, because the hydrological characteristics of the Clary Lake watershed (9.9 square miles) and that of the larger Sheepscot River watershed (142 square miles) are quite different. Clary should contribute 6.9% of the water measured at the gaging station but that figure actually varied from a low of around 1% to a high of 60% with an average of around 12.4%. Sheesh. Second, nobody actually controls the flows on the river, but we do in fact do control the outflows from Clary Lake so it is largely our own management activities that make correlating the two flows almost impossible. It would be nice if Clary outflows were always 6.9% of Sheepscot River flows, but I guess that would be too easy! Anyways, here are two charts I made while investigating whether a correlation between lake and river flows exists. One shows Clary Flows as a percentage of the Sheepscot River flows. The average turned out to be 12.43%. The other is a simple visual comparison of the two flow amounts which I did to see if anything jumped out at me. Nothing did:

Here’s the 2021 Water Level Chart gallery:

[Show slideshow]

Happy New Year everyone 🙂

Clary Lake has been trying to freeze over for about 3 weeks now, first at one end, then at the other. Each time it’s melted off. A good section out in front of my place has been ice free all along thanks to the ducks that come to our bird feeding station, they splash around and keep the ice from forming. Clary has just been waiting for a good cold night to freeze over, and last night was it. This morning the temperature was a paltry 9.9° F and from all appearances, the lake is now solidly frozen over. There is no sign of ducks today! Historically, A review of our Ice In and Ice Out Dates page shows that 12/20 is on the late side for the lake to freeze over. With the exception of the freak year in 2016 when the lake actually didn’t freeze over completely until January 15th, this is the latest ice-in date since the lake froze over on December 30, 2006. Continue reading →

November 2021

I have archived the November 2021 Water Level Chart (at left). The lake level in November was like a roller coaster ride. Our general plan for a dam operations in November is to get the lake level down a foot or so below the HWM in preparation for the lake freezing over sometime in December. A large rain event on the last day of October however brought the lake up to +0.25 ABOVE the high water mark, the highest the lake has been all year! On the first day of November we pulled one of the three remaining stop logs and opened the gate 1.05 feet to drain off some water which resulted in the lake level dropping 1.18 feet over over the next 12 days. Over the rest of the month we had numerous rain storms including one of 1.22 inches on the 12th and a 1.10 inch storm on the 22nd. This rainfall kept the lake level up higher than we would have liked. We ended the month with the lake level down 1.13 feet. Continue reading →

October 2021

I have archived the October 2021 Water Level Chart (at left). October was looking to be a very dry month with rainfall well below normal until the next to the last day of the month when a significant wind and rain storm blew through the area. I recorded 2.68 inches of rain by the time the weather cleared on the 31st, bringing our monthly total to 4.34 inches, just shy of the average for October of 4.45 inches. There was a major 3 day northeaster back on the 25th of the month that was forecast to drop 3-5 inches of rain here, but it turned out to be mostly a southern Maine rain event; here we received less than an inch of rain. I thought we’d end the month with the lake level down around 1 foot below the top of the dam, but instead, by the end of the day on the 31st the there was water running OVER the top of the dam, with the lake level the highest it’s been all year. This morning as I’m writing this, the lake level is 0.25 above the High Water Mark, and still rising. Continue reading →

June 2021

I have archived the June 2021 Water Level Chart (at left). The drought deepens. We were shy 5.20 inches of rainfall at the end of May, now we’re shy 6.76 inches of rainfall at  the end of June. We received a total of only 2.15 inches of rain in June, fully 1.58 inches less than normal. This brings us to 14.1 inches for the year to date. Our drought is nowhere near as severe as they’re experiencing in the western half of our country and especially in the southwest, but that is small consolation: this deficit will have a profound impact on our environment and ground water supplies for the rest of the year, and it’s not over. It’s so dry that even when we received a significant rainfall of 0.99 inches on the 22nd of June, the lake level only came up 1/3 of an inch. Lesser rainfall amounts during the month had almost no measurable effect on the lake level. There are two reasons for this: The primary explanation is that the ground around the lake is so dry that when the lake receives rain, the rising water is quickly wicked off into the surrounding dry shoreline. The other reason is that at this lake elevation, adding more water to the lake mostly makes the lake bigger, not deeper. Continue reading →