Great Lakes HIGH water levels

[Dave Lochner]

The money will likely go to outside experts and agencies. There are a number of research centers that study the Great Lakes, such as the Great Lakes Consortium.

The 2014 Plan does provide for adjusting the algorithm that dictates the lake levels and outflow. The algorithm is available on the IJC.org website. I looked at it and my eyes quickly glazed over and memories of college calculus disturbed my sleep that night. As I recall, the algorithm looks at lake levels, inflow, and river levels among other factors.

[Siberianhusky]

All that is fine, all I know as I sit her 50 miles north of Lk Ontario right on the Trent/Severn is those are the biggest snowbanks I've seen 10 years. Might have been a mild winter but speaking as the guy who plows it all into piles we've had a heap of snow and very little of it has melted until the last couple of days, looking at the long range I see the possibility of another 6 inches total next week...Going to be worse than last year and 2017 as far as water levels on Lk Ontario, last year needed rubber boots to get to my boat, at times the fixed fuel dock had waves breaking right over it.

[Mike OReilly]

All the research I can find indicates the Great Lakes Basin has been receiving higher levels of annual precipitation than normal. Of course, what is the "new normal" is the real question. The reason the Lakes are high seems pretty clear: it's due to an increase in moisture levels.

Here's a nice summary article in Scientific American: Climate Change Sends Great Lakes Water Levels Seesawing.

As much as I'd like to blame the politicians, or the IJC, I think the real culprit is rapid climate change. So, when you think about it, we're all to blame .

[Dave Lochner]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

All the research I can find indicates the Great Lakes Basin has been receiving higher levels of annual precipitation than normal. Of course, what is the "new normal" is the real question. The reason the Lakes are high seems pretty clear: it's due to an increase in moisture levels.

Here's a nice summary article in Scientific American: Climate Change Sends Great Lakes Water Levels Seesawing.

As much as I'd like to blame the politicians, or the IJC, I think the real culprit is rapid climate change. So, when you think about it, we're all to blame .

Mike, I'm with you on this. Reminds me of the classic Pogo cartoon, "We have met the enemy and he is us."

Rather than address the science, politicians are politicizing the floods. The IJC enjoys some immunity from law suits, however, our local upstate NY science denying upstate congressional representatives have introduced legislation to remove that immunity so they can be sued for damages caused by the flood. A foolish waste of time and if it should pass, a foolish waste of money and effort will spent defending the inevitable law suits.

[Siberianhusky]

I'm not sure how much the snow pack had to do with last year, was pretty much an average winter for us in the business. The spring was horrible though, started raining and just didn't stop. Last fall the corn crop around here had terrible yields because of the cold wet spring. Not enough corn heat units by harvest time.
Weather certainly is different than it used to be.

[rslifkin]

Snow pack around the Ottawa River combined with the wet spring led to major flooding in those areas and reduced lake outflows to keep the flooding to "bad" rather than "extremely bad". From the last I heard, snow pack around the Ottawa River is less than last year. And south of the lake, we've had a warm winter, which means far more of our winter precipitation is already in the lake rather than sitting as snow waiting to melt into the lake.

Based on those factors, the spring lake rise should be smaller this year than last year (last year it was far larger than average).

[Tetepare]

Originally Posted by Siberianhusky

All that is fine, all I know as I sit her 50 miles north of Lk Ontario right on the Trent/Severn is those are the biggest snowbanks I've seen 10 years. Might have been a mild winter but speaking as the guy who plows it all into piles we've had a heap of snow and very little of it has melted until the last couple of days, looking at the long range I see the possibility of another 6 inches total next week...Going to be worse than last year and 2017 as far as water levels on Lk Ontario, last year needed rubber boots to get to my boat, at times the fixed fuel dock had waves breaking right over it.

Interesting. South side of the lake has had a light snow year. Only the east end had significant snowfall- and that was last week. Even with the 4’ tug hill got in two days time, i doubt they are at annual average.

[Dave Lochner]

Originally Posted by Tetepare

Interesting. South side of the lake has had a light snow year. Only the east end had significant snowfall- and that was last week. Even with the 4’ tug hill got in two days time, i doubt they are at annual average.

Syracuse is about 2 feet below below average although total precipitation is up, most of it was rain.

The 4 feet of snow on the Tug Hill is mostly water from Lake Ontario and Huron. Some of the water will not return to the Lake Ontario basin, some will end up in the Mohawk River. Lake effect is also a dry snow, it takes around 30" of snow to equal an 1" of water. So there is only about an inch or two water on the ground. Synoptic snow from storms comes in around 10-12" of snow per inch of water.

Waiting to see what happens is almost more difficult than dealing with the floods when they do happen.

[Durangutan]

Just came across another blurb on the topic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev6i5r5w3Ek

Water levels notwithstanding, we’re approaching the go/no go decision point for our planned sailing vacation on Lake Michigan starting in May and it’s not looking good....

[Dave Lochner]

Interesting video. One issue that does not seem to get mentioned is the unimpeded capacity of the St. Lawrence River, if there were no dams, how much water would normally flow throw the river at high water levels? Another way of asking the question, how much more water could flow out the river if the dams weren't there?

The latest forecast from the IJC suggests Lake Ontario will be above average, but below record levels.

https://ijc.org/en/loslrb/watershed/forecasts

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by Dave Lochner

Interesting video. One issue that does not seem to get mentioned is the unimpeded capacity of the St. Lawrence River, if there were no dams, how much water would normally flow throw the river at high water levels? Another way of asking the question, how much more water could flow out the river if the dams weren't there?

Over the winter, they had things pretty much wide open a few times. With lake levels a bit over 246 feet, somewhere around 10,700 cf/sec is the upper limit for what the river will flow from what I've heard. I don't have data for how much that changes with lake level, however.

Flow capacity is a lot more than before the Seaway was built, due to dredging, etc. However, the upper part of the river is still a big choke point and that's why flows get limited a bit during shipping season to keep currents manageable in that section.

[SuW]

The St Lawrence Seaway opened April 1, 2020.
No recreational traffic is allowed through the locks, presently.
Or through the Welland Canal.

The Iroquois lock pass-through gates for small craft are closed.

https://greatlakes-seaway.com/wp-con...0200326_en.pdf

Local boat ramps in my county are taped off with Caution tape. (Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry - Iroquois to Cornwall).

[Tetepare]

The week of 07- 14 April the water at my dock off Lake Ontario rose 2.5”. Haven’t measured since then but I’m sure it’s risen.

[LittleWing77]

I wish I could post the IJC Webinar from Friday, April 3rd. Will go back to the link and see if they've made it public yet...

LittleWing77

[LittleWing77]

Okay, here's link, but when I click on it, it still comes up (for me) as "registered attendee" , which makes me think that if you weren't registered, this link won't work.
(Hope that's not the case, though.)

The Webinar was 30 minutes of information and 1 hour of questions.

https://register.gotowebinar.com/rec...LRECORDINGLINK

Good luck! LittleWing77