We received this from the NOAA - NWS Chicago Office: Rock River Basin and Fox River Basin hydrology contacts, For your situational awareness... we want to bring to your attention an increased risk for flooding next spring due to very wet conditions this fall. Typically, fall is too early to determine the risk for flooding the following spring, but conditions across large portions of the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes regions have been wet enough to likely increase the risk of elevated [...]
River Update! I received an email from the NWS today. Scott Lincoln informed me that they are keeping an eye on the storm saturday night for our region. The fox and rock river basins are thought to be spared from the heaviest of the rain event. Although any change in the storm track to the north would be bad for both rivers. High soil moisture and reduced evaporation means that rivers will not be getting back to normal low levels until at least the end of November with little to no rain fall. [...]
Dam update: As we all have noticed the flow rate of water past our homes has started to go down. This is a welcome relief for residents that have had several sump pumps running non stop for the last month and a half. If the trend continues the pumps might stop running in the next week or two. I would like to point out what a great job Sheriff Caruana is doing to monitor the dam and adjust it as needed in a proactive manner for winnebago county. The RRHA/Sheriff and Com-Ed are running river [...]
River Update. I have been contact with the NWS. Scott Lincoln informed me that the rain we just received did not amount to much for the basin. The river will continue its slow descent for the next week. He informed me that there is still an excessive amount of water in the basin flood planes north of us that still needs to drain this way. The river closed will be lifted soon and the river will be going to no wake for the next few weeks. Residents that need to get boats out for the season should [...]
River update. I have been in contact with Scott Lincoln from the nws. I expressed concern with the future rain that is predicted for friday for our basin. He informed me that some of that rain is already plugged into the future line on the latham gage. They feel as long as the totals stay under 1" for the area we should be ok. The levels may rise back to the level we were just at a couple of days ago. We have all been beat down from the last year of nonstop record rainfall totals. We need to [...]
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 [...]
Water Levels are dropping, please be safe with damage assessment and clean up. The Sheriff has posted the slide deck from NOAA.Click Here Machesney Park is starting to review damage as well starting on Monday, March 25th. More Information Here
Just a reminder, Town Hall Meeting on the Rock River Conditions will be Wednesday, March 20th, 2019 at 6:00pm at Harlem High School. Main Speakers: NOAA, Sheriff's Department, Rock River Home Owners Association, & ComEd