June 2019 Lake Levels and Flow Rates

It appears that for the lake area the drama of the flooding of 2019 may be coming to an end. Although going into the 4th of July holiday the amount of debris in the water is horrendous! While Truman Lake remains well above normal in both level and flow rates things seem to be tapering off. Flow from both dams remain above maximum turbine flow (meaning flood gates/spillways are open) but that may be coming to an end soon.

Obviously, with flow rates high the entire month, the total amount of flow through Bagnell Dam is far above normal, nearly 850 BILLION gallons for the month of June alone. In fact, in only six months Bagnell Dam has already passed 2.72 TRILLION gallons of water into the Osage River, far exceeding last year's total flow of 1.46 TRILLION gallons. That's enough water to cover an area the size of the entire state in 2.25 inches of water, and that's just so far this year. The operational numbers are quite impressive as well. Normally flow through the dam is under generating capacity about 3 out of 4 hours on average. This year is on target for less then 2 out of 3 (75.8% versus 59.05%). Which means Ameren has had flow enough to generate power over 40% of the time. Bagnell is making money this year and helping to pay off all that work that was done.

So here are the graphs. First the candlestick version for the month of June. Notice that despite the heavy flow, lake levels were pretty steady and normal, just slightly above the 5 year average (shown in orange on the second graph).

Next the full hourly detail.

And finally the summary candlestick for the year so far. It's pretty rare the total flow bar is above the lake level candlestick element.