Information and editorial regarding the Lake of the Ozarks and Missouri's Ozarks region.
Monday, October 03, 2016
September 2016 Lake Level and Flow Rates
Sort of a weird month looking at the chart. Power generation was put on hold for the Labor Day weekend but then went through the normal daily generation up until mid September. The constant generation starting 9/19 through 9/23 is somewhat unusual, but temperatures were pretty warm and it was probably a profitable time to be making electricity.
It's interesting to note that the almost steady flow rate from the dam of about 17,000 cfs from 9/19 to 9/23 brought about a completely different reaction to lake levels than virtually no flow rates the first four days of September. Levels at the beginning of the month trended downward at an almost steady rate, while continuous higher flow rates introduced daily fluctuations of several inches. In my assessment, with such a steady flow, lake levels from the 19th-23rd should look almost identical in slope to that of the 1st-5th, but instead we see the sawtooth behavior of small rises and falls. There's some insight to be had there, but what it is I cannot say.
The full pool (660ft) reached at noon on 9/18 will likely be the last full pool level of the year, barring any repeat of flooding events like we had last December.