Somethings badly wrong at Oroville Dam – Major stress test all next week.

The overflow level is 901 feet.

On May 10th the level was at 888.410 and on May 11th it was at 889.560. Please note that the guy narrating the video was a bit confused about how high the percentage above normal the snow pack is, so I did some research. In early Feb the California Department of Water & Power, DWP, stated that there was 106.5 inches of snow depth. But the important figure is how much water that works out to when it all finally melts. The Snow Water Equivalent, SWE, (which is what really matters) comes out to a whopping 51 inches.

There are two big dangers. The first is that there is forecast to be 5 to 6 inches of rain between tonight and late next week. The second danger is that at this time of the year most of the snow is turning to wet slush, which is a normal part of the melting process. It’s anyone’s guess what 5 or 6 inches of rain belting down for a full week throughout the High Sierras is going to have on the snow pack.

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As it happens I’m into gold mining and I have seen quite a few miners videos this last month or so where they are really down in the dumps because the water levels are very high all along the Sierra’s and they cannot get down to the good stuff. So yeah there is plenty of evidence that the situation is really bad.

Something really evil is in the works. The DWP know what’s coming and it is normal common sense to get the water levels as low as they can go to prepare for this entirely foreseeable event. Instead the dam is nearly full.

 

 

h/t Judethz

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