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Can someone explain to me how lake Somerville is at 300% of capacity and not spilling over?

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It looks to be about to spill. The most recent gage reading is 257.69' and the spillway crest is 258'.

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"Conservation Pool Level" on that type of lake is 100% capacity. That extra 200% is the flood retention level - the difference between where they like to maintain it (CPL) and the spillway elevation.

Good news

Last time Somerville went over the spillway?

Texas Lake Levels

This is a much better website for lake levels, it updates every hour and some lake more than that.

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Texas Lake Levels

This is a much better website for lake levels, it updates every hour and some lake more than that.

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I noticed Stillhouse has a ways to go, but Belton is creeping towards max capacity (but that last few feet is a huge amount of water on that lake). The Brazos sure doesn't need all that water from the Leon coming down.

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I don't know where on earth the brazos is 19' below cut bank, but be grateful if so. I'm on the beach side, but normally the far cut bank is 40 feet tall. Now it is 2.

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well, it was 19' measured on an angle, not the vertical. the day before it was 25' on the same slope.

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I found an easier place to take a measurement yesterday. The trail on our place that goes to the lower ledge that i took the video from on the 27th was flooded last night (the 28th).

I strung a tape from the edge of the water, to the top of the bank. I then shot the slope with a clinometer.

I measured 37' from water to bank, and the slope was 12% (6.84 degrees). so that would be about 4.4 ft rise on a right triangle.

luckily, looking at the gauge on the NOAA site, the water level went down some overnight. Not sure what will happen in a day or two following those storms that stretched nearly the whole state last night.

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the problem with the gauge on Hwy 21, is that i don't think the Datum is set correctly. we've tried to get them to check it, but the problem still persists.

Case in point, the top 5 crests are listed below the gauge graph. Dec of 1991 measured 43.40ft and flooded most of the brazos bottom in Burleson county. Yet, last night it hit 46.45 ft and still had 4.4 feet to go by my measurement.

Also, there were two crests from 2007 that exceeded the 1991 mark (46.49, and 43.99) that did not get out either.

I'm guessing sometime between 1991 and 2007 that they got a new gauge, and didn't set it up properly to match the old data, or maybe the channel there has changed, but as it stands the current data is not comparable to the historic data.

They did change the Flood stage on the graph to 52' tuesday afternoon (it was listed at 43 ft on monday & tues AM). So instead of adjusting the data, they just changed the flood stage.

LOL I was wondering when they were going to put him down and kept urging the camera man to pan back for some perspective

I will withhold comment on how a LEO can get his SUV stuck on live TV

Everyone makes mistakes

I wonder if usace will hold on belton as long as possible - pushing it up to the spillway. Belton can get deep if need be.

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Texas Lake Levels

This is a much better website for lake levels, it updates every hour and some lake more than that.

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I noticed Stillhouse has a ways to go, but Belton is creeping towards max capacity (but that last few feet is a huge amount of water on that lake). The Brazos sure doesn't need all that water from the Leon coming down.

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Lake Belton normal pool is 594 and the spillway elevation is 631. Right now it's at 598.5

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Last time Somerville went over the spillway?

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I could only find reservoir elevation data going back to the mid-90s and the highest the lake ever got was 255 ft. Looking at storage volumes there might have been a time in the late 80s that it spilled, but its tough to say.

So either some time in the late 80s or never.

There is some construction being done on the spillway on the downriver side of Belton. I suspect they will have to hold onto everything they can unless they just have to cut it loose. Right now, the spillway consists of what looks like about a 3' diameter pipe.

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Last time Somerville went over the spillway?

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I could only find reservoir elevation data going back to the mid-90s and the highest the lake ever got was 255 ft. Looking at storage volumes there might have been a time in the late 80s that it spilled, but its tough to say.

So either some time in the late 80s or never.

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Only time Somerville ever went over was 1992.

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I think that was the year that the Brazos River crept up all the way to West Columbia, which is several miles from the Brazos. I remember seeing river water in the ditches around town.

Thanks,
I didn't download tabular data and the USGS makes some horrible graphs!

National weather service provides some decent graphs that show the record heights... for many places it also has predictions and discusses flooding at different gage heights.

Somerville:
http://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=hgx&gage=somt2

Brazos at Richmond:
http://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=hgx&gage=rmot2

It's really interesting. They are keeping the projected river height below the historic height, I guess to keep the fear-mongering down, but at the current rise rate, it will exceed the 50.00' marker by potentially more than 1.5'...

Wonder why they are doing that?

Cheesy music, but drone video of Somerville Lake spillway..
Spillway

If it gets that high what will it do to the university farm and other land in the bottoms over there?

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It's really interesting. They are keeping the projected river height below the historic height, I guess to keep the fear-mongering down, but at the current rise rate, it will exceed the 50.00' marker by potentially more than 1.5'...

Wonder why they are doing that?

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The predictions are probably based on upstream data. The river is cresting near Hempstead currently, which means it will crest at Richmond in a couple days. However, today's rain probably isn't factored into the predictions.

Don't have a clue about College Station, I don't know anything about that floodplain now that I moved away.


Farmer, I think you're right about the prediction, but it is directly stuck to the 50.0 mark, just seems too perfect for me.

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If it gets that high what will it do to the university farm and other land in the bottoms over there?

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they'll be under water.

but you have about 4 miles of farmland out there, so the water will be spread out and likely won't be moving as fast as the main channel. hopefully if there is any damage, it will just be water damage, and not structural.

if you look on google earth at brazos/burleson counties, you can see that the Brazos used to be a couple of miles west of its current channel. There is an old channel that is west of FM 50 and snakes across the river bottom down towards Independence.

FM50 between College Station and Brenham has been closed due to flooding....and Somerville Lake might soon add to the misery.

In 91 the house I rented in college had 2-3 ft of water in it at HWY 50.

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FM50 between College Station and Brenham has been closed due to flooding....and Somerville Lake might soon add to the misery.

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Knew I should have planted rice this year

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FM50 between College Station and Brenham has been closed due to flooding....and Somerville Lake might soon add to the misery.

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is it at the Yegua Creek Crossing?

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if you look on google earth at brazos/burleson counties, you can see that the Brazos used to be a couple of miles west of its current channel. There is an old channel that is west of FM 50 and snakes across the river bottom down towards Independence.

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Just south of FM50 and TX Hwy21 is "Moehlman Slough", a former path of the Brazos River. It's a very deep cut, with water sometimes pooled in the bottom. Totally FULL as of yesterday!

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if you look on google earth at brazos/burleson counties, you can see that the Brazos used to be a couple of miles west of its current channel. There is an old channel that is west of FM 50 and snakes across the river bottom down towards Independence.

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Just south of FM50 and TX Hwy21 is "Moehlman Slough", a former path of the Brazos River. It's a very deep cut, with water sometimes pooled in the bottom. Totally FULL as of yesterday!

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yep, I drive past it every day!

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FM50 between College Station and Brenham has been closed due to flooding....and Somerville Lake might soon add to the misery.

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is it at the Yegua Creek Crossing?

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From Brenham radio station:
The Washington County Sheriff's office wishes to advise motorist that FM 50 at FM 390 near Independence an FM 50 north of Clay near FM 1361 at Buffalo Ranch is being closed today due to high water.Also, the Washington County Road and Bridge Department has closed Kieke Road, from 6615 to 7305. This road will be closed until further notice. They also wish to remind motorist that FM 1948 at Lake Somerville is closed until further notice.

My dad lives in Gatesville and the Leon has been out of its banks for a few days. That's a lot of water still to run to Belton Lake. I think if they get too much more rain, the chain reaction to the Brazos could have it flooding before long.

It looks like Dallas is going to be hit hard again tonight, is there any practical method to protecting my house if the creek rises too high? Sand bags in front of doors?

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My dad lives in Gatesville and the Leon has been out of its banks for a few days. That's a lot of water still to run to Belton Lake. I think if they get too much more rain, the chain reaction to the Brazos could have it flooding before long.

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The Cowhouse was almost full banks again this morning too.