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TN valley heavy rain/flooding week of whenever


janetjanet998
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models trending wetter for the two systems later in  the week..looks like 1 to 1.25 average wide :( but then huge highs after that??

cumberland now at 754.27 out flow now 53,000...still rising fast  (about .15 foot/hr average)

On the upper/mid cumberland other lakes such as Dale Hollow and center point getting closer to capacity..so very little flood storage for spring rains

wolf creek Dam.. 6 feet from spillover when this was taken a couple hours ago. "spillover" is the gap between the road and the top of the gates,,hard to see here

should fall short

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Lake Cumberland

lake at 754.48... stilling rising .. up .13 last  hour outflow 55,000 ..inflow still 140K....peaked in the low 200K's!! inflow should match outflow sometime tomorrow...If it follows the slope graph of the other cycles this week..

here is a pic of the dam today and I noticed something interesting....notice what appears to be brown discolored water to the left of the power plant along the wall...after. that I will post a youtube drone video from 2018 (see 12 second mark) that also has the spillway gates opened...both after the repairs ....there is no discolored water  in the 2018 video.....

this discolored water could be seepage ..  

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Jentz85 said:

575.15 at 2000z

 

54710cfs out

144084cfs in

 

 

They've brought the outflow down some as well. Might just be trying to stabilize it.

I noticed that too.....not up to the 60K predicted ..it could because 5K is going out of Dale Hollow now??

center Hill very high too

going to be a long spring...  

Corps turns attention to drawing down storage reservoirs

https://www.dvidshub.net/news/311799/corps-turns-attention-drawing-down-storage-reservoirs

 

 

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3 hours ago, Jentz85 said:

575.15 at 2000z

 

54710cfs out

144084cfs in

 

 

They've brought the outflow down some as well. Might just be trying to stabilize it.

oh boy.....Is all the outflow  eroding away part of the embankment beneath the power plant? is that why the lowered it?...see this video taken today (or yesterday) maybe at the 48 second mark in the trees...and also see what appears to be a wet spot dark green above that. also I winder why they reduced flows from the spillway but turned the power plant back on??

edit: in the 2018 drone video there appears to be erosion there too...or at least more rocky then dirt

edit again:  did a tree tip over there from  outflow erosion?

 

 

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10 minutes ago, janetjanet998 said:

it is indeed eroding the shore line and hat tree is indeed tiipped. over....in fact in this video   there is construction equipment ,looks like they are trying to use grout ....

transmission tower concerns?

 

see at the 21 second mark'

 

 

Personally speaking, I do not think that the current time period will be the big issue. Heading into the Spring, I feel like we are in a bad place. North of Nashville we got close to 4" yesterday evening which, of course, as in the East TN area, flash flooding. We need a large scale pattern change, I mean large scale. I dont want a drought but seems like we are over due for one!

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1 hour ago, weathertree4u said:

Personally speaking, I do not think that the current time period will be the big issue. Heading into the Spring, I feel like we are in a bad place. North of Nashville we got close to 4" yesterday evening which, of course, as in the East TN area, flash flooding. We need a large scale pattern change, I mean large scale. I dont want a drought but seems like we are over due for one!

I agree and the situation may be grim: I will focus on Cumberland....rather then TN river...perhaps someone else could do that?

1) Laurel Lake is now full....now 3000 cfs was pushed thru the power plant at times...but the max inflow In these events were in the 10-15K range....with the 1800 over flow now and the power plant it is releasing about 5K outflow into cumberland....but with the bowl  now full...if we have a repeat,  8-12K of extra inflow per hour would be flowing into Cumberland in stead of filling up the bowl it overflows at 1018.5 feet..it will fall below that but next time less space before it overflows

2) Cumberland lake looks to make it to 756 at least now....it is clear this evening there are worried about hillside erosion under/near the transmission towers..at outflow 58,000..any increase in outflow would increase that erosion..if that tower tips they might loose the power plant controls and./or the spillway gate controls...??? not sure about that though...went back and looked at the video...if appears they are trying to fill in the eroded area with gravel

 

The had similar issues at oroville on the main spillway ...they were worried about back erosion cutting way at a vital transmission tower so they had to decrease outflow on the damaged main spillway..from 65,000 to 50,000 bfs and in the meantime the lake overflowed and went over the emergency spillway witch started back cutting that away....and almost eroded out the side of the Dam...in that case, since they had no choice,  they increased flow to 100,000 on the main spillway to get the level level lower ASAP....the tower ended up being fine in hindsight 

 

3) I mentioned this before but according to the math (at least at these levels) on the US corp page a .01 inch change in lake level hour is about 7400 cfs..for example if inflow is 100,000 and outflow is 26000 the lake would rise  .10 that hour..  (100-26)/10  well the flip Side is true...if outflow is 60,000  and inflow ZERO the lake would fall .081 an hour...or 1.95 a day or 13,61 in a week..  well of course inflow won't be zero but in a week if that actually happened would only be down to 740 feet..of course that won't happen

4) max inflow in this event was over 220,000 Cfs.....without the Dam or flood pool...thats  coming downstream next time

5) Dale Hollow and Center Hill very high too

6) any rain that falls later in the week will slow the fall of these lakes

7) Euro SE storm in day 11 ?  see day 10..(then I assume dry after that)

 

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2) Cumberland lake looks to make it to 756 at least now....it is clear this evening there are worried about hillside erosion under/near the transmission towers..at outflow 58,000..any increase in outflow would increase that erosion..if that tower tips they might loose the power plant controls and./or the spillway gate controls...??? not sure about that though...went back and looked at the video...if appears they are trying to fill in the eroded area with gravel
 
The had similar issues at oroville on the main spillway ...they were worried about back erosion cutting way at a vital transmission tower so they had to decrease outflow on the damaged main spillway..from 65,000 to 50,000 bfs and in the meantime the lake overflowed and went over the emergency spillway witch started back cutting that away....and almost eroded out the side of the Dam...in that case, since they had no choice,  they increased flow to 100,000 on the main spillway to get the level level lower ASAP....the tower ended up being fine in hindsight 


Makes sense now why people were saying on Facebook they have closed off all the area below the dam near the power plant.



.
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1 hour ago, Jentz85 said:

 


Makes sense now why people were saying on Facebook they have closed off all the area below the dam near the power plant.



.

 

Have you seen any info about what is  going on there?  any talk on facebook?  I did see a pic that they have that area taped of with caution tape now..with a guard

any new pics today might give more clues

 

another interesting thing is that they turned the power plant back on (was zero outflow for days) and lowered the spillway outflow yesterday...any flow out of the power plant is less  turbulent..but what were they seeing to lower the spillway outflow all of a sudden?

 

also the tailwater is now high from the channel getting backed up, and getting higher( although is seems to be leveling out) ..

higher tailwater=more erosion 

at what level does it flood  the power plant?...same issues at Oroville when all the debris in the channel and increased flows backed the water up, almost  lost power plant..lots of sandbagging and pumping

 

http://riverstatus.usace.army.mil/group/LRN/Lakes/WLCK2-WOLF_CREEK

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for some reason its not updating the Wolf Creek numbers.. 

but using the 6am number 756.07

time for more math...  here is how dire the long term flood storage is...

lets assume they keep the outflow at 58,000 for two weeks...will they? can they?

lets assume inflow average 15,000 (likley higher)

the difference is 43,000 divide that by that 7400 number it a fall of .056 per hour 1.34 feet a day

in this unrealistic best case scenario the lake won't be back down to 740 until 12 days from now...Sat Mar 9th

 

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21 minutes ago, Jentz85 said:

Wolf Creek hasn't updated for 4 hours now.


.

the NWS river gauge is still updating.. still .04 or .05 per hr from 11:45z to 15:45z..

https://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph_to_xml.php?gage=wlck2&output=tabular

 

I'm not sure why this gauge is about 2/3 of a foot lower then TVA and Corps page...

I have seen this lower report on several media/ social sites at times..the higher number seems to be the correct one in mentioned  the PR's

 

edit:  11am updated 756.26  inflow 81,000..otflow creeping up about 100cfs an now record 58,640

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9 hours ago, janetjanet998 said:

Have you seen any info about what is  going on there?  any talk on facebook?  I did see a pic that they have that area taped of with caution tape now..with a guard

any new pics today might give more clues

 

another interesting thing is that they turned the power plant back on (was zero outflow for days) and lowered the spillway outflow yesterday...any flow out of the power plant is less  turbulent..but what were they seeing to lower the spillway outflow all of a sudden?

 

also the tailwater is now high from the channel getting backed up, and getting higher( although is seems to be leveling out) ..

higher tailwater=more erosion 

at what level does it flood  the power plant?...same issues at Oroville when all the debris in the channel and increased flows backed the water up, almost  lost power plant..lots of sandbagging and pumping

 

http://riverstatus.usace.army.mil/group/LRN/Lakes/WLCK2-WOLF_CREEK

I used to work in a lot of power plants doing switchgear Maintenance on the circuit breaks throughout the plant.  All the turbine floors are usually on the 3rd or 4th floor of the plants.  First floor is usually a huge open area that runs just about the whole floor with a large crane running in the rafters to move large items down and up from the other floors, and you’ll have a few other non essential things on the first floor. I share all this to say that most power plants can handle a serious flood better than most would think due to the way they are layed out.  They also have tons of extra drainage valves through your the plant that are there to help in the unlikely event that a fire happens and the fire suppression system cuts on.  Those drains could also help if you had flooding from the river the plant was on as well.  

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looks like a crest in the next few hours

another pic of the river bank .....from a distance.....see all that white stuff near the transmission tower....gravel?  sandbags?  tarp?.also is the other pine tree gone?

https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&q=lake cumberand&src=typd

edit:  another picture has one of those non-pine trees laying on its side and a tractor putting rocks down

so it seems they are tearing out all the trees and putting rocks down 

 

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facebook video on the ground yesterday...

 


Darrell Littrell was live.
on Sunday · 
Wolf Creek Dam.
60,000 cubic feet per sec of water being released. They're hauling Rock and boulders the water is up so high that it's washing the bank out where the electric Transformers are

 

confirmed bringing in truck after truck of gravel and boulders building a wall

 

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