Heavy rain coming to the Atlanta area tonight
Could this be the storm that we’ve all been waiting for? It appears unlikely that we’ll get the 15+ inches that they saw in much of Florida, but parts of the area could see over 10 inches.
With the 1.11 inches received at Buford Dam yesterday, it was the first day this month where Lanier didn’t drop (it started and ended the day at 1053.30). The rain over the next few days will certainly raise the level of the lake, but by how much? If we actually get 10 inches of rain in north Georgia, what will that do to the level of the lake? Any guesses?
August 25th, 2008 at 9:58 am
The same article reported that Habersham County got 3-5 inches yesterday. Does any of that drain into Lanier or is that a different basin?
August 25th, 2008 at 10:07 am
this is going to be a very big rain event, and Lanier will benefit, but perhaps not all at once. Small upstream ponds and the overall dryness of the landscape will mean a lot of what might usually be runoff, won’t be running off. Still, it just brings forward the fact that a wet autumn will be able to put Lanier up vs. last year’s levels.
August 25th, 2008 at 10:35 am
The Chatahoochee basin area has been getting soaked all morning. Watching the radar, it looks like the rain is heaviests in the mountains. This will benefit Lanier for weeks to come. The problem all spring has been that the basin area is still in a drought and flow into Lanier has been at a record low. Should the current moisture that is along the Georgia Alabama border move a little east, the rain could continue over most of the next 24 hours. We’ve got a pretty good likelyhood of ending the month of August up from where we were August 1.
August 25th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Over two inches at my house in Gainesville so far though the 8 AM lake level shows a measly .08 ft gain. I will be disapointed if we don’t see at least a foot of gain from Fay. Hopefully we have a lot of rain still to come.
We do have another shot at rain after Fay leaves us. According to Accuweather “Tropical depression 7 has formed in the central Caribbean. The developing system will closely follow the track of Tropical Storm Fay”.
August 25th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
MY TURN TO RESET THE DEAD POOL CALCULATOR!
BGAAAWKKKK
August 25th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
The rain in the mountains will help, if there is more rain later. The actual drainage basin for Lanier is pathetically small, and pathetically dry. It will take a LOT of water to saturate it. Any runoff you get will be only because the rain has been intense enough that the land can’t suck it down in time.
RichS - When you count how much the lake has risen, remember to add how much it would have otherwise lost - since that water is still being let out of the dam or withdrawn. On 8/24 it did not rise nor fall - but the three days previously it’d fallen 0.10 feet. Today it is 0.08 up (so far), but expecting another 0.10 fall means it’s really up 0.18 today, and 0.28 for the last two days.
August 25th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
rkolter Says:
August 25th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
The rain in the mountains will help, if there is more rain later.
–
Just admit it, you blew your dead pool prediction AGAIN.
BGAWK
August 26th, 2008 at 7:21 am
I’d be glad to have my dead pool prediction blown.
Wow, look at it go. You guys must be getting some torrential rain.
August 26th, 2008 at 8:29 am
I’m just praying this is the last season where I’m not allowed to wash my car. Or reseed my lawn. I was really hoping to have a clean car and grass by next spring!
August 26th, 2008 at 9:56 am
My water gauge topped out at 4 inches this morning, collected over the past 2 to 3 days. I’m in Decatur. Not upstream of Lanier, but not bad!
August 26th, 2008 at 10:09 am
I’m at about 4″ in Gainesville too - and still counting. About five and a half inches gain for Lanier so far as of 8AM. Should hopefully still rise a good bit more as we may still have a couple of inches of rain today and tomorrow.
August 26th, 2008 at 10:30 am
and the Cornelia gauge still showing 2280 cfs, which is enough to keep the level rising. Amazing to see the change in color on the USGS website on the timelapse as all the gauges went from red to blue. Keep it coming. Hopefully Gustav brings some too, although it does look very worrying on the damage front.
August 26th, 2008 at 11:41 am
With all the rainfall downstream, do they adjust the release levels from Lanier at all” I would think the last thing they even want downstream is more water flow. Gustav is just going to kill Florida with flooding if it follows anything close to Fay’s track. Sounds like a good time to keep our water here. Anybody know?
August 26th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
So far no one from the news or this site has shown any interest or knowledge in decreasing the amount let out. Does anyone know who to contact? I already sent a note to the news but no interest. Ahh our goverment at work.
August 26th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
The lakes down stream are over or near their full summer pool. I’d say there won’t be any Lake Lanier water earmarked to places south of Metro Atlanta released for at least another month an a half, and possibly the rest of the year. The stream below lake Lanier should be running near or above normal for at least a month, and West Point lake is in a position of being more than capable of satiating water needs below it without any assistence from lake Lanier:
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ffc/html/rrm.php
August 26th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Don - We have no control over the releases. We do however, have knowledge.
Buford’s 2008 discharge data, updated daily:
http://water.sam.usace.army.mil/gage/acf/prob2.txt
Thurs - 1276
Fri - 1282
Sat - 1068
Sun -1063
Mon - 625
Thursday and Friday were average for the week; Saturday and Sunday were average for the weekend.
Monday it stated raining - and they discharged 40% less.
The ACF seems to be on top of things - remember right now they are not discharging for Florida’s use from Lanier. Only to supply immediate needs and to dilute the oxygen-poor inflow from Atlanta downstream.
August 26th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Most excellent they are paying attention and working the problem. This restores my faith in the powers in control. This is great news! Knowledge rules!
August 26th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
rkolter: What units are those numbers in?
August 26th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Anybody know what kind of precipitation Lanier received and what its current level is? The USGS real-time data have not been updated since 10:15 AM.
Thanks!
August 26th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Whoops - I see that the lake level has been updated as of 6:00 PM to 1054.47. Precipitation still hasn’t been updated since 10:15 AM.
August 26th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Chris - Those numbers are in Millions of Gallons per Day.
HLT - yeah, there’s something up with the gauge at Buford Dam; it goes gliltchy every once in a great while. Seems to happen when the numbers are changing rapidly.
Whopping growth there too - a foot up from yesterday, or thereabouts.
August 26th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Wait, revision.
Chris - Those numbers are in HUNDREDS of Millions of Gallons per Day.
August 26th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
No, wait, I’m just tired. Ignore that - it’s millions of gallons a day.
August 26th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
The remnants of fay have dropped about 5 inches at Buford dam. Gainesville - at the airport - has gotten over five inches. A substantial percentage of the heart of lake Lanier’s watershed has gotten over 8 inches or rain. On average, I’d say the entire Lake Lanier watershed got about 6.5 inches of rain since late Sunday.
http://radar.weather.gov/radar.php?product=NTP&rid=ffc&loop=yes
http://weather.noaa.gov/weather/current/KGVL.html
August 26th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
While I certainly and enthusiastically embrace the rain, the more Lanier rises, the more people forget the water supply problems and any political will (which already has faded greatly) to truly address water supply problems up and down the basin will disappear until the next crisis. Piedmont Ben and others are ready to go back to life as usual, and as the past 18 months have shown, life as usual in the ACF basin can be very problematic.
August 27th, 2008 at 1:19 am
In the above, rkolter displays the same confused and flawed “armchair expertise” that he brought to the discussion about Lanier’s original purpose a few days ago.
In point of fact, the USACE figures cited are average outflows for each day in cubic feet per second (cfs).
It should be noted that these figures also equal the total daily volume of water discharged in units of DSF (day-second-foot). A day-second-foot is a unit of volume commonly used in hydrology. One DSF is the volume of water represented by 1 cfs flowing for 24 hours. One DSF equals 86400 cf or 646316.8 gallons.
– DSO –
August 27th, 2008 at 5:45 am
While I certainly am “ready” to go back to a life where I’m allowed to do normal things with water, I’m obeying the water restrictions to the dot. More than I can say about some of my neighbors. And I’m not going to suddenly ignore the restrictions because there were a few buckets dumped in the area.
August 27th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
DSO is at least half-right this time around.
Those numbers are in cubic feet/second. I was looking at two different reports - the ACF Historical Data, that I linked, and a nice little tracker for Lanier at http://tinymicros.com/lanier/
August 27th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
No, rkolter, DSO was 100% right, as usual.
– DSO –