OK, if half of you are worried about not getting full by June 1st and half of you aren't then I should feel good right? For some reason, though, I don't, and frankly, I never do until the lake is where it should be. Over the last 2 months we've measured a grand total of 3.48 inches of precip. Here are the numbers since January 1st:
Actual Average
January 3.89 3.34
February 2.16 2.92
March 1.32 3.61
Total 1st quarter 7.37 9.87
Our deficit is just 2.5 inches for the year, but reference (and correct it is) to the lack of snowpack gets to the root of the problem. Snowmelt and spring rains usually work together to create the normal spikes in inflow that we use to bring the lake up. As these flows come into the lake we adjust discharge at Lakeport Dam as needed to keep the lake where we believe is appropriate for the time of year and the prevelant watershed conditions. We've known the snowpack was slight as we've been actively measuring it throughout the winter.
The fact is, that even without much of a snowpack, we can refill with the runoff from average precipitation by cutting way back at Lakeport. It is very unusual to have to go to minimum flow conditions in the early months of the year, but we've been at min. flows there since the 22nd of this month and the lake has responded by rising 1/4 inch - not as much as I'd like to see. We need rain, and it isn't unreasonable to assume that we'll get it as weather patterns shift and more of the storms that have been skirting off to our south find their way to us. In our favor, we still have either frozen ground or fairly saturated ground conditions so any rain that does fall should produce meaningful runoff.
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