March 6th, 2024.
With up to 2 inches of rain forecasted for the lake area over the next 48 hours, today could well end up being the low point of the year at 653.92 feet above sea level around midnight this morning. Here's the chart.
Sharp readers may well ask, what happened to February 29th? And you would be correct, there is no data for that day on this chart. Which is why the graph takes a quick dive from Feb 28th to March 1st. I would chart it if it happened to be the lowest point of the year, but my spreadsheets just do not account for the extra day and I tend to ignore it for these purposes.
While it's hard to see actual levels and dates on the above image, the difference between the average (in orange) and this year (in ...turquois?) levels may look significant but it is really only six inches. Each horizontal bar represents 3 inches. This year's drawdown, while about as low as we've been in the past fourteen years, is far from exceptional. The lowest levels for this data set was 2021 and 2016 at 652.86 and 652.83 respectively, over a foot lower than today's low.
In short, if this is the low level of the year, it's timing and depth would be well within average.
How long we stay at this bottom is the only real question left, but it's pretty clear it won't be long.
