• Current River Status

  • River level at latham. What I would like to try to explain is how the flow rate is directly proportional to the river level. We all look at the river level on the gage at latham to see how high the water is and how high it is predicted to go. An example is when latham is at 10′ on the gage. If we follow the line across to the far right side of the graph we see the # 17.3. The 17.3kcfs translates to 17300 cubic feet per second of water flow past latham gage. If we ask google to convert to per minute rate we have 7,764,779 gallons of water flowing by that gage per minute. That is a phenomenal amount of water per hour and per day. When we talk about trying to lower the water level at latham we cannot do this due to the amount of water the upstream faucet is dumping at us. The dam has complete control of the water level at latham during times of low flow. As the flow rate goes up the ability of the dam to control and lower water levels lessens. This is due to the faucet from upstream over powering the effects of the dam. When people say they want the water level dropped at latham, this can only happen if the flow rate lessens. Gage height and flow rate are always the same. The dam can help lower the water level 6″ to 10″ at latham if run in a proactive manner as it is being done now. The rest is up to mother nature stopping the in flow of water into the basin. I hope this makes sense to everyone.