Whats up with North Platte water levels???

[rsmiller]

4 days ago it was running around 1,000 and climbing now it dropped like a rock to less then 400 cfs.


Did they start pulling irrigation water out????

[caspermike]

pay attention to the percent of water elevation in reservoirs. usbr had a conversation to pull pathfinder heard from word of mouth, so that its just going to be river channel. glendo alcova and all others except seminoe are almost full. so if they didn't shut it off up near alcova, glendo would be flooded due to alot of water coming from the medicine bows like deer creek and boxelder laperell are all putting in at least 1000 cfs together with what the farmers are taking out of it. the cfs will pick up in about 2 3 weeks. nebraska also received mosture so we don't need to send them any more.

[Chip]

If you're interested in the Northgate-Six Mile Gap-Treasure Island reach of the North Platte, what's likely occurring is that the waterhog ranchers in North Park, CO are diverting most of the flow from the tributaries to flood hayfields. (The Big Laramie River is actually higher right now than the North Platte at Northgate: sad.) Once the fields fill up and there are return flows, the water at Northgate might come up a bit.

A string of warm days (& warm nights) can amp the flows, and rain on top of a thawing snowpack can set up a nice bump (e.g. 1400-2000 cfs) which is perfect for the whitewater section. But you have to keep an eye on the USGS gage and be ready to go at short notice. In a year like this, with low snowpacks, the peak might last only a few days.