In the green today

[James T Kirk]

There you have it--->3522.24<---is your low. It's been cold in Moab, accumulating snow in the La Sals and GREAT spring skiing the last few days.

Now here comes 80+ degrees for this week and the melt-off begins. Ebb and Flow but I feel 3522 is the low for this Spring! -Kirk Out

 

[flowerbug]

I was curious about how many cubic miles of water were being held in Lake Powell and the upstream reservoirs. As it turns out a cubic mile contains about 3.8 million acre feet of water so the present value of both upstream and Lake Powell is about three cubic miles. when you consider how big all of that looks when you check the maps and satelite pictures and how many people it gets used (and reused by) it's all pretty amazing.

To compare and contrast the amount of fresh water locked up in Greenland's ice (estimated at 684,000 cubic miles) or Antarctica (estimated at 6,400,000 cubic miles)... are these numbers making you feel tiny yet? i'm trying to find some estimate of the average total snow pack for the Sierra Nevada's but so far no real luck there - guessing it's similar to the Rockies (2-4 cu milesish)...

 

[Trix]

It's true that releases are lagging and they have to make up for it, but based on BOR's schedule, they plan to do most of the "catch-up" later in the summer. So I'd still expect a peak in the upper 3530s, but then it will start to drop relatively fast by the end of July into August. Here's the BOR's planned average daily releases by month through September, all put in terms of cfs:

Apr - 8,425 cfs
May - 9,748 cfs
Jun - 11,402 cfs
Jul - 13,166 cfs
Aug - 14,429 cfs
Sep - 11,200 cfs

Now in a year like this one, you can expect inflows to return to the 6-8,000 cfs range by the end of July, so you can see what kind of net deficits the lake will be running in August, when the net outflow will probably be in the range of 7-8,000 cfs. If that's the case, expect the lake to drop about 6-8 feet in August, and maybe 5 feet in September. (rule of thumb: 0.1 ft of rise or fall with each 3500 cfs net inflow or outflow). So if I had to game this out, here's my prediction for lake levels through the summer:

Apr 30 - 3525
May 31 - 3530
Jun 30 - 3539
Jul 31 - 3537
Aug 31 - 3530
Sep 30 - 3525

You about nailed it so far!