Atlanta Water Shortage

Watercrunch has an interesting article about Lake Hartwell, a large lake near the Georgia-South Carolina border.  The lake is continuing to drop, now sitting at 639.58′, which is well below the previous record low of 642.4′ set way back in 1981.  Lake levels tend to be around 657′ in the winter.

There are even some countdowns underway, much like we had last year with Lanier.  By some reports, there are only 300 days worth of water left.  The lowest intake on the lake is at 620′, a level that could be reached by next fall.

They also included an interesting photo.  The original bridge crossing for the Seneca River, which has been underwater since the lake was filled in the 1950s, is now coming back out again.  See the picture below:

The record low for Lake Lanier is 1050.81, set on December 23 of last year.  On this day last year, the lake was at 1055.19 and falling fast.  Today we’re nearly three feet lower (1052.26), though it’s not falling as quickly.

Lately, on average, the lake is falling around 0.06 ft/day.  At that rate we’re about 25 days away from reaching the new record low.

So what do you think?  Will we drop that low?  If so, when?

Presidential hopeful Barack Obama released a statement today that supports Florida in the 30+ year old water war with Georgia.  The reason?  They have 27 electoral votes while Georgia only has 15.

Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson have already written a letter to Obama expressing their disappointment.

Full details can be found in this AJC article.

There were 25 straight dry days in a row, which caused Lake Lanier to drop by over 1.5 feet, but the last few days have brought some very nice rain totals to the area.  The 25 day stretch was the 21st longest dry period since 1878 — pretty impressive!

According to Ken Cook, here are some area totals from the storm:

• Athens…3.16″
• Atlanta….1.80″
• Cartersville…1.43″
• Columbus…3.03″
• Gainesville…1.64″
• Macon…1.44″
• Marietta…2.51″
• Peachtree-Dekalb…2.04″
• Peachreee City…1.96″
• Rome…1.85″
• Fulton Co. airport…1.94″

Despite a very active hurricane season, the Atlanta area didn’t see much after Fay left town.  However, the temperatures this September were far lower than last year, resulting in a loss of only about 1-1/2 feet, vs the three foot drop we saw in 2007.  The chart clearly shows how much Fay helped, though it certainly would look better if we had seen rain from another hurricane.

We continue to set calendar-day records for the lake level (”the lowest it’s ever been on October 1″, etc), but we’re still a few feet away from the all time low.  As of today, the lake is at 1054.07 ft, with the all-time low being 1050.81, set on December 23 last year.

Last October saw a drop of about 3-1/4 feet.  I don’t imagine we’ll get that kind of loss this month, but it’s almost certainly going to drop.  How far do you think it will get this month?

It’s totally not water-related, but most people are concerned about finding gas right now.  The best resource I’ve found for info is on Twitter, using the tag #atlgas.

Any other good resources?

With Hanna zooming past the east coast, we can turn our eyes to the next possible rainmaker - Hurricane Ike.

Hurricane Ike is a category 3 hurricane as of this writing, and early tracking suggests it might thread the needle between Florida and Cuba and come up the west coast of Florida.

On that track, it could very easily end up bringing Georgia some much needed rain.  Alternatively, if it follows Hanna but as a larger storm, it could at least brush Georgia.

In any case, Ike is the next big system in the area - what are your thoughts?

For a while, it looked like we might be right about Hanna bringing us some rain — turns out we’re wrong.  All of the latest models now show Hanna hitting in the Carolinas and then shooting off to the northeast.  We’re not likely to get much of anything out of it.

In the meantime, Lanier has slowly been dropping this month; down about an inch so far.  Certainly not bad, but that pace will start to accelerate as the ground begins to dry up from Fay.

Maybe Ike or Josephine will show us some love…

Being the first day of the month, it’s time for our monthly status chart and things are looking better!  Fay certainly did a lot of good for us.  Rather than drop 2.5 feet like we did last August, the lake actually rose.

The bad news is that we’re still in rough shape.  Today is the lowest the lake has ever been on September 1st, which is the kind of record we’re setting every day still.  The key is whether the lake will plummet over these next few months like it did last year.  The extra moisure in the ground and the threat of more heavy rain (Hanna?) tend to point to good news, but you never know.

Last September the lake dropped by over three feet (1061.77 down to 1058.73).  What do you think it will do this year?

There are a lot of good tools out there to help you track the various storms using Google Earth and/or Google Maps.

• Various tools provided by Google Earth Blog.
• Hurricane tracker for Google Earth, from Google Earth Hacks.
• A whole bunch of Google Maps tools, from Google Maps Mania.

I tend to go back and forth between the Earth-based and the Maps-based tools.  I love the tilting/rotating/etc fun in Google Earth to get a great look, but the convenience of Google Maps is tough to beat.

Are there any tools you’re using that you’ve found particularly helpful?