Current River temperature is 76°.
Current river level is 5.4 at Latham.
This is about 15 in above the 4-ft drought level.
We have been keeping the water about 5 in high downtown to help keep us from getting lower upstream.
We all remember one year ago when we lost a month to high water.
We were at 10.3 on this day last year at Latham and the river was closed.
The pictures above are from last year’s flood event
As a comparison we have 162 million gallons of water per hour flowing down our drainage basin today.
Last year with the high water on this day was 480 million gallons per hour flowing down our drainage basin
The easy way to calculate this when looking at a national weather service river gauge is to follow the line of River heights across to the right side of the gauge and you will see today 6 kcfs.
That translates to 6,000 cubic feet per second or 2.7 million gallons per minute.
The reason Rivers flood is because of excessive flow rate that the river channel can’t handle and it overflows into people’s yards.
We were very blessed this past week that the deluge of rain that fell in a short period of time was very isolated and therefore did not allow our river to flow out of its banks.
There is City market tonight with eight boat slips to park at and tons of restaurants to visit.
Tad’s bar and prairie Street also have plenty of boat parking.
There are chances for rain tomorrow and into next week.
Do yourself a favor and take your friends out on the boat to enjoy this beautiful weather we are having at the moment.
The debris that went into the river from the creeks and streams has mostly gone passed us from last week’s surge.
Get out and take advantage of this summer while it’s here.
Be observant, drive defensively and make it back to the dock safe and sound.