The lake is high! (pool, health, snake)

[mistyriver]

The round green thing is my grandkids sandbox. The boat started to float out of the lift so it’s tied up to the dock now. We took the flowers out of the submerged planter to sit out the high water in buckets. About 9 more inches to go till it starts to go down. The coyote that is supposed to scare away the geese needs a snorkel!

[mistyriver]

Pend Oreille always seems to be the last to come up. We were at normal summer pool weeks ago.

[IdahoBroker]

Wow. I didn't realize the lake(s) there had that much variance in high water levels.

[banjomike]

The Snake River is running very high right now. If Palisades Dam wasn't there to regulate the flow, the waters would be a flood stage, I think.

This spring was unusually very cold, and while May is typically rainy, the rain turned to snow in all the higher elevations.

Normally, the snow pack begins the spring melt before May' rainfall, but this year, the melt stalled out by the cold temps before it had really begun. Here it is; miid-June. Last night there was a freeze warning out, and the past 4 days topped out in the low 60s, while today is going to hit 86 here.

That means all the snow melt is becoming heavier than it would have been, and it's combining with all the rain run-off.

Here, it's making a record flood on the Yellowstone River, while up in NID, it's causing all the lakes to top off suddenly.

This kind of weather makes for flash flooding. We don't see it in Idaho very often, but this is the year for it, I'm sure.

It's a mixed blessing for me; while I hate to see anyone who gets wiped out in a flood, all this water coming so fast at once has completely reversed Idaho's drought for this summer's growing season. So if we get just a little more rain in fall, we could be in even better shape come next summer.

For the panhandle, all this late moisture reduces the potential for some seriously big wildfires. We will probably have some fires break out, but hopefully, the forest soil has enough moisture to prevent them from becoming super-fires, like the ones in N. Mexico.

[banjomike]

Hey, Misty....
Does the fake coyote work to scare the geese?

[mistyriver]

Originally Posted by banjomike

Hey, Misty....
Does the fake coyote work to scare the geese?

It did at first…not at all now. He’s more of an unofficial mascot now. In fact the damned geese were swimming around his poor submerged self till we hauled him out of the water this afternoon.

[volosong]

Originally Posted by IdahoBroker

Wow. I didn't realize the lake(s) there had that much variance in high water levels.

They start releasing water past the dams in the late autumn in anticipation of the spring snow melt bringing the lake levels back up to "normal".

[IdahoBroker]

Originally Posted by volosong

They start releasing water past the dams in the late autumn in anticipation of the spring snow melt bringing the lake levels back up to "normal".

Thanks, I never knew there were dams that created the lakes up there. I am used to the "old days" when they would call those reservoirs instead of lakes. I just looked up Lucky Peak near me which I grew up calling Lucky Peak Reservoir and see it's name was changed in 1971 to Lucky Peak Lake.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

Originally Posted by banjomike

The Snake River is running very high right now. If Palisades Dam wasn't there to regulate the flow, the waters would be a flood stage, I think. ..........

Is this one of the dams that the woke are agitating to have removed for the health of the salmon run?

[mistyriver]

Originally Posted by IdahoBroker

Thanks, I never knew there were dams that created the lakes up there. I am used to the "old days" when they would call those reservoirs instead of lakes. I just looked up Lucky Peak near me which I grew up calling Lucky Peak Reservoir and see it's name was changed in 1971 to Lucky Peak Lake.

They are still natural lakes, not reservoirs. But the levels are manipulated via hydro dams. At least Priest, Pend Oreille and Lake Coeur D’Alene are natural. They were lakes before they dammed the outlet rivers and if they got rid of the dams they would still be lakes.