Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, CaryThe Triangle Area
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Lake Michie is full and flows from the Flat River are now heading downstream into Falls lake now.
It doesn't look like there's enough rain to completely fill Little River Resevoir, but it'll be a good dent. Throwing some numbers against the wall, right now the little river is flowing 1000 cfs, and has been there since 11 pm last night. That suggests it'll add at least half a billion gallons to the Reservoir.
With the Flat now added to the Eno, there's probably over 6000 cfs flowing into Falls Lake. Thats 160 million gallons an hour. All told, the rain event should add at least 2-4 billion gallons to falls lake, raising it at least a few feet.
We got lucky that the leaves haven't popped out onto the trees yet...if that had been the case streamflows would have probably been 30-50% of what they were.
So the good news is that the rain makes a dent, and have the potential for another 0.5-1" on Friday. That would likely completely fill Little River Reservoir, and get Falls Lake to at least 249-250'.
But remember, while it would be great to have nearly full reservoirs, the problem is low streamflows, and it takes consistent rain to get base streamflows back to normal. All the Falls Lake watershed reservoirs were completely full last May, and it only took a couple months to reach crisis when the streamflows weren't there to support consumption.
The other important part is that everyone learns the lesson and conserve water and resources through good times and bad. If we keep moderate water restrictions in place and watch consumption and growth maybe we can keep things from getting this bad in the future.
Falls Lake is up 4.5 feet since the end of February. It is currently 3 ft below normal...much better than the 7-8 feet it had been. Here is a nice graph to display the difference...
But remember, while it would be great to have nearly full reservoirs, the problem is low streamflows, and it takes consistent rain to get base streamflows back to normal. All the Falls Lake watershed reservoirs were completely full last May, and it only took a couple months to reach crisis when the streamflows weren't there to support consumption.
That is a really good point and should not be overlooked by those already thinking of loosening the restrictions.
A question on the topic of drought - Isn't Falls Lake filled not only by rain fall but by other water sources north of us flowing downstream? We are getting rain now. Yeah! And, the areas North of us have stopped water restrictions a while back b/c they are out of the drought. So, isn't that double the icing on the cake for us?
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Falls Lake is 4.4' below normal and rising
