2007/2008 Lake Level Water Problems

I just heard an announcment on our evening news that the last public ramp has been closed on Lake Norman due to low water levels. I look for the last ramp to close on Lake Wylie soon as well.:smt021
 
Might not happen Dave ... how's teh situation after all the rain this week? We will have received 5+ inches after it's over tonite ... not making up for the deficiency, but sure gonna help things ... and then lows in the mid 30s from Sunday ...
 
Well it's been three weeks since we had to pull her out because of low water in the lake. Lake Wylie rose a few tenths last week from the rain we had but it will take another two feet of water to bring the lake back up to the point that we can splash the boat again. In the meantime missing all the fantastic fall boating weather we have been having is killing me. It's likely to be January or February before levels come back up.

So I guess I'll just go over and sit on the boat............maybe it will make me feel better ...................but I kind of doubt it.:smt009
 
All of you Guys in the affected areas.
I feel bad that you have no end in sight. Hopefully you will have consistent rain over the next couple of months and the lake returns to normal.
Since around here everything is surrounded by water it's unimaginable to have dry lake beds.
Anyway passing along my condolences and hopefully it's getting better soon.
 
The 4/10s of an inch that our lake level rose from the rains last week has all but disappeared and we are back close to our lowest levels again with no rain in sight. We are at 93.0 as of this morning, a full seven feet down.

Here is another story and video from a few weeks ago that pretty much dramatizes where we are right now on Lake Wylie. http://www.wsoctv.com/news/14371130/detail.html
 
Smith mountain lake added about 2.5 feet from the rain and is holding steady at 791.7 up from 789.5 at it's lowest. I could take my line extenders off again this weekend. Whew for now, but we need lots more rain to get back to full pond at 795 ft. ASL. 789 was getting hairy, Half of our slip row awas sitting in the mud and I had only 1 foot left udner the props. Any lower and I would have had to turn her around heading in instead of backing in since the bottom in our slips slopes quite a bit.
 
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As of this evening most of the major lakes along the Catawba River Basin, including Lake Norman and Lake Wylie, have receded back to their all time low. The slight increase in lake levels we got from rains a few weeks ago is gone now. There still is no significant rain in site so I expect Stage 4 water restrictions to be a definite possiblility here shortly.

I am beginning to ask myself what I should do about boating next spring if water levels are not back up to normal. It's no fun having a boat you can't use. :smt089
 
After the nice rains we experienced over the weekend, our Lake Levels are starting to come back up. We are still way below normal on Lake Wylie but we are almost back to a "safe level" in our Marina, or rather a level where I was able to maneuver in and out of the Marina as long as I had my outdrive raised way up. All the boats that were sitting on the dry lake bottom in the Marina are floating freely now except for one big Sedan. Unfortunately the water is still too shallow for the inboards so they will have to remain in their slips or in dry dock which is where hey have been confined for the last 5 months.

I really want to see another foot of water in the lake before I splash again, but if I get tired of waiting for more rain, I just may have to launch anyway. And the Marina has filed for all the necessary permits to do some dredging as well but that may be a ways down the road.
 
Dave S said:
After the nice rains we experienced over the weekend, our Lake Levels are starting to come back up. We are still way below normal on Lake Wylie but we are almost back to a "safe level" in our Marina, or rather a level where I was able to maneuver in and out of the Marina as long as I had my outdrive raised way up.
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Dave I was thinking about you over the weekend when we were getting all that rain. I hope we can get a few more of these rains before the spring. Maybe patterns are changing for the wetter. How much did the water level rise with the rains we got?
 
brian2001ss said:
Dave I was thinking about you over the weekend when we were getting all that rain. I hope we can get a few more of these rains before the spring. Maybe patterns are changing for the wetter. How much did the water level rise with the rains we got?
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So far the lake has risen about 7/10ths of a foot from that rain. Since December 17th it's risen a foot.
 
Dave.... we are seeing low water conditions here as well. Our local lake (Folsom) is drawn down nearly 100 feet (yes, vertical feet of water). The lake stores about 1 million acre-feet of water when full. It is a flood control lake so being drawn down 40-50 feet entering winter is normal. Currently water storage is just under 225,000 acre-feet. 5 mph speed limit for the entire lake has been in force since before labor day.

Other lakes in the area:

Oroville - Down 200 feet Full: 3.6 million acre-feet Current Storage: 1.3 million acre-feet

Shasta - Down 130 feet Full: 4.5 million acre-feet Current Storage: 1.8 million acre-feet

Folsom, Oroville, and Shasta are the 3 bigger lakes that feed the Sacramento and American rivers so flows into the rivers has not been great either.

I don't really need another dry year for boat projects :)
 
Water levels are slowly coming back in Lake Wylie. Our lowest levels were recorded at 92.6 or 7.4 feet below full pond which is the all time record low on our lake. At that level, our Marina is unusable. Today the water level is back to 94.8 and we can get boats in and out of the Marina now if they have outdrives that can be raised up. We still need another couple of feet to get back to normal for this time of the year but all the lakes along the Catawba River Basin are rising as well so it's looking promising. Lake Norman is only about a foot below normal and some of the lakes below us are above normal too. And today they are predicting more snow and rain.

I only hope the summer is not too dry so we don't have to go thru this again.:smt021
 
Under the circumstances don't you just love this weather right now, even with it being wet, cold, nasty and just generally not good for boating.
 
Dave S said:
Water levels are slowly coming back .....
I only hope the summer is not too dry so we don't have to go thru this again.:smt021
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Not sure about your area, but I know in the north GA area they are saying that 2008 is going to be worse than it was in 2007?

Let hope they are wrong.
 
At the present time all eight lakes along the Catawba River Basin are at or above seasonal levels except our lake, Lake Wylie. Lake Wylie is still 1.3 below the seasonal norm but the lake is much more usable now than it was just a few months ago. Lake Norman, the largest lake on the Catawba, is actually 3/10ths above it's seasonal norm. We continue to get regular rainfalls so that helps as well. However we are still slightly behind our total annual rainfall for the year and stage 3 water restrictions remain in place everywhere. We aren't out of the woods yet and everyone is concerned what another dry summer will do to the water supply. We will just have to wait and see.

Anyone else have anything to report from your area?
 
Dave thats good to hear. The same is happening out here also. Not out of the woods but its going to slow down our problem some. snow pack is at 140% and lots of local runoff from all the rain.:smt038
 
The drought is an issue for us here in georgia. But the real issue was horrible mangement by the Corp. They were dumping the water out of our lakes much faster than it was comming in. The previous law on the books (which was common sense) let out no more than rain fall allows. That law was changed some years ago and they have been dumping the water without thinking.

However, since they have started to lean towards common sense, Allatoona is now back on track and above winter pool and gaining see this graph for upto date levels:smt038 http://water.sam.usace.army.mil/allafc.htm
 
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