Lake Lanier Doesn’t have an Inch to Give
As of today, November 25th at 2am EST, Lake Lanier is down to 1051.20 feet 4.68 inches from the record. I saw some guesses for Dec. 1st and Dec. 4th for the record low, it should be right around then barring any major rainfall.
On a personal note, I’ve taken over the blog and the posting from Mickey. His great work and excellent contribution to content left me a high bar to live up to. If anyone has any suggestions for the blog or is dying to write a guest post, send me an email at: Chad@AtlantaWaterShortage.com. Thanks in advance for all the regular contributors – I’ve read through many of the comments and there is some great feeback.
I’m not from Atlanta, but I definitely feel an attachment to the area as my wife grew up in Marietta – so I have some local ties. Looking forward to making many more posts!
Tags: atlanta, Chad, lake lanier, Marietta, Mickey
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November 25th, 2008 at 8:27 am
Hello Chad. I don’t believe we’ve met.
November 25th, 2008 at 9:53 am
OK, add this to the growing list of things that I just can’t understand. How in the world does the lake level go down by almost an inch in a day where it rains virtually from sun up to sun down over the entire Lanier basin? Its not like the COE needed to release water to make electricity and the downstream rain should have negated the need to release water to dilute sewage. This doesn’t make any sense to me at all.
November 25th, 2008 at 10:55 am
The rain wasn’t all that hard – 0.15 to 0.20 inches depending on where you measured. 0.20 inches is less than 0.02 feet. And that is about how much the lake gained – it only lost 0.04 feet, instead of 0.06 as it had been.
November 26th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Right. So that would make sense if it rained nowhere other than the lake, and if the COE didn’t adjust the outflow from Lanier due to the rainfall downstream.
November 26th, 2008 at 10:15 am
I think the issue is the dryness of the ground. Whe just a bit of rain falls, it hits the dry earth, soaks in for a half an inch or an inch, and then just sits there. Very little runs into streams that then run into the lake.
Last fall, when the lake level was getting a lot of attention, there were a few articles about how the dry earth was actually sucking water out of rivers and the lake through capillary action – just like how water can “climb” up a piece of cloth that’s dipped into a basin. Sort of the same thing here. The ground is so dry it just holds that little bit of rain and little of it flows down to the streams and then the lake.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capillary_action
Your point on adjustments of outflow due to downstream wetness are very well taken, and that point I truly don’t understand. The downstream basin appears, to my reading, to be flush with water. Is there a minimum that needs to be released to serve needs between Lake Lanier and areas in the near downstream?
Lake George, for example, appears to be overfilled – see link below.
http://water.sam.usace.army.mil/acfframe.htm
It wouldn’t be the first time I was confused or didn’t understand something, so if someone can shed light on this, I’d appreciate.
November 26th, 2008 at 10:32 am
The COE has explained (although I can’t find the article at the moment) that there is a minimum amount of water needed downstream for the health of the river between Buford and the next reseveroir, to dilute water being returned, and to serve the needs of intakes between buford dam and the next lake (which includes the intakes for Atlanta).
Scott’s right on the dry earth thing – and again, it was only 1/5 an inch of rain, over the whole day. Think of the land like a sponge – if you trickle water on a dry sponge, the sponge will absorb it – if you dump the same water on the same sponge all at once, some will run off.
There just wasn’t any appreciable amount of volume added by that rain for the downstream needs – they still had to release. If that same 1/5 an inch had fallen in 1/2 hour, you might have seen runoff into the river.
December 4th, 2008 at 8:02 am
I dont live in Atlanta. Does the area appear as dry as it did last year when it was in the national news? Do you actually “see” the drought whil driving aroundthe area? My brother down there said lst year you could see it in the rivers, etc when flying out of the city. It just doesnt seem to be be big deal down there about how low lanier is. Any thoughts?
December 7th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Its a really scary situation. It is not getting the national coverage like last year. I just checked the internet because the weather channel was talking about much needed rain so I googled and wow it is as bad as it ever was. I thought last year they were looking into desalting ocean water and pumping it to north GA (pretty far I know). With the massive explosion the last two decades north GA better figure something out.
December 10th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
actually, Atlanta itself is not particularly dry. We’ve had at least normal rainfall all but about three months this year, and we’ve exceeded normal a few months as well. The problem remains primarily in northeast Georgia, which has been extremely dry this year as have the mountain areas of eastern Tennessee, Western North Carolina, and Northwest South Carolina. The rivers that feed Lake Lanier and Lake Hartwell have all but dried up.