Thread: water level
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Old 04-24-2021, 04:42 AM   #16
jeffk
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bear Guy View Post
I see historical data, online at DES, going back to 2010 (link below). I have this graph I snagged from Bizer's site a few years back, that goes back to 1984. ...
The interesting thing to remember about this graph is that the high water in 2005 and 2006 were associated with single "100 year storm" events; yeah 2 years in a row. Low water problems are usually associated with droughts. In 2005 and 2006 the whole NH watershed was flooded. I lived along the Merrimack river and the water level in Nashua was touching the bottom of some bridges that are normally 20 - 30 feet above the water.

In general, the folks that control the dam do a pretty "dam" good job. It is the weather, long and short term, that messes things up. When water levels are dropping normally through the summer and the dam outflow is adjusted accordingly, there is no way to know that 2 months later we will be in drought conditions. There is no magic reservoir of water to fill the lake back up. In 2005 & 2006 we got so much rain that the lake level jumped over 2 FEET. How do you plan for that? How do you get rid of the water when everything downstream is already flooded?

If you look at the graph from the quoted post and go to Bizer for the current one, you see most years follow other year's patterns closely. Considering what they are trying to work with, that's amazing.
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