You might have noticed that a lot of rain last week led to quite a few rising rivers in our area. The Pearl River is the most obvious, and there is work underway right now to try and get that water level down before this weekend’s expected rain.The Spillway gates are turning out a lot of water right now. In fact, it’s the equivalent of filling a football field, 1 foot deep every 2 seconds out of the gates. The goal is to lower the lake and lower Pearl River to make sure any flash flooding doesn’t turn into long-term flooding damage. A thousand cubic feet of water per second was released Wednesday from the reservoir spillway flood gates.The rapid amount of water is causing the basin of the spillway gates to swell, forcing operators to shut down the Madison County boat launch. The rising water has been inching up over the approach in parts because of last week’s heavy rains that are now forcing a push to lower the lake and lower Pearl before another band of rain comes in. Chad Entremount, with The National Weather Service, says the Pearl will go down over the next 24 hours, which will help lower the river gauges for this weekend’s expected heavy rains. The hope is to reduce the impact of flash flooding, giving any heavy rainfall a faster path to drain. What comes out of the gates affects the river level at Jackson, which should crest at about 29 1/2 feet by Thursday morning, and hopefully down to below 24 feet by Friday or Saturday when those heavy rains could arrive.
You might have noticed that a lot of rain last week led to quite a few rising rivers in our area.
The Pearl River is the most obvious, and there is work underway right now to try and get that water level down before this weekend’s expected rain.
The Spillway gates are turning out a lot of water right now. In fact, it’s the equivalent of filling a football field, 1 foot deep every 2 seconds out of the gates. The goal is to lower the lake and lower Pearl River to make sure any flash flooding doesn’t turn into long-term flooding damage.
A thousand cubic feet of water per second was released Wednesday from the reservoir spillway flood gates.
The rapid amount of water is causing the basin of the spillway gates to swell, forcing operators to shut down the Madison County boat launch. The rising water has been inching up over the approach in parts because of last week’s heavy rains that are now forcing a push to lower the lake and lower Pearl before another band of rain comes in.
Chad Entremount, with The National Weather Service, says the Pearl will go down over the next 24 hours, which will help lower the river gauges for this weekend’s expected heavy rains. The hope is to reduce the impact of flash flooding, giving any heavy rainfall a faster path to drain.
What comes out of the gates affects the river level at Jackson, which should crest at about 29 1/2 feet by Thursday morning, and hopefully down to below 24 feet by Friday or Saturday when those heavy rains could arrive.
