A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
December 20, 2007
3. Watersheds
Redding Record Searchlight – 12/20/07
By Dylan Darling, staff writer
After hitting a 15-year low this year,
A rush of rainwater pushed the waterline up slightly early this week and then more than a foot on Wednesday, said Sheri Harral, spokeswoman at Shasta Dam.
"We've had four inches of rain in the last three days," she said.
The lake had been at close to 127 feet below the high water mark at the dam Sunday, Harral said, before the wet, wintry storm swept into the north state. On Wednesday, the lake was about 125 feet below.
The lake level is significantly increasing for the first time since late March, she said. The lake had dipped to its lowest level since it hit 155 feet below the crest in 1992. It was still far short of the record low mark of 230 feet below set in 1977.
Since the dam has been in full operation starting in 1945, its low water mark has been more than 100 below the crest 18 times, according to Bureau of Reclamation records.
The low lake level this year prompted the Shasta County Sheriff's Office to implement boating restrictions and forced some resorts to move their docks.
Water managers had expected rain to start and the lake to rise again in October, but after a tease of a rainstorm that month, November was one of the driest on record, Harral said, with only 0.67 of an inch of rain recorded at the dam.
Lately, the weather has been anything but dry. With the recent rain, inflow into the lake was up to 12,500 cubic feet per second (cfs) while releases from the dam were at 4,500 cfs, she said.
Another storm is set to roll in Monday, but it should be a weak system, said Johnnie Powell, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service's
He was optimistic about the long-term outlook.
"We are just getting started," Powell said. #
http://www.redding.com/news/2007/dec/20/lake-shasta-water-level-trickles-up/
####
No comments:
Post a Comment