January 16, 2011, MRNP, watching the snow go by

I live on the Nisqually just outside Mt. Rainier NP; been walking the river.

River flows: mid week 550 cfs, last 2 days, 2,000-2,500 cfs; daybreak today 6,000 cfs; mid-morning, 8,000 cfs; noon 9,000 cfs; flow at midnight predicted to be 10,500 cf.

My favorite 'Ditch' run is never going to fill in at this rate.      Four and a half inches in the past 24 hours; looks like they've revised the projected flood curve upwards:   
water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.phpwf...w=1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1%22

Those giant runnels are tough on old knees & backs...

we just walked across the trestle below Ashford, and there is a lot of water in that river, but have seen much more.  Anybody remember the flow rate when sunny point campground disappeared?  At the approximate 10k cu.ft. that it is now, and figuring at least 10k more from other inputs into Alder Lake, it takes a little more than 2 seconds to inflow one acre-foot.  At 2930 surface acres when full, the lake will rise a foot in little more than an hour and a half - it did look higher when we got back from our walk.

It was 14 point something as I recall, just a couple tenths below the record, which they used to show on the river gage graph. 

Sounds like the Park kicked everybody out early today & Monday is in doubt:
seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/theweathe..._rainier_closed.html

All time high peak stream flow was in Nov 2006 at 13.14 feet and about 21,000 cubic feet per second; the river topped out at about 8,500 today and has now dropped below 8,000 cfs (minor flood stage) but is still predicted to got to 10, 500. Anything above 12,000 cfs is truly problematic and has resulted in major flooding, erosion, etc., including loss of the Hidden Valley residential subdivision and breach of the levee and loss of 10 homes in Nisqually Park (as well as Goat Creek slicing thru 706). Of course, I've seen 9000-12000 with nothing but erosion, too. The 2006 episode took out probably 600 ft of levee, 5 acres of campground, Kautz Creek jumped out its bed, and the park was closed for winter and spring.

We met MRNP geomorphologists today who claimed the flow of the Nisqually leaving the park was less than 50% of the flow at the National gauge :, what do you think, Gary: is the flow of Big Creek/Cat Creek + Tenas and Goat Creeks greater than the combined flow of the Paradise River, Nisqually, Tahoma Creek, etc. etc., especially given that orographic precipitation meant Ashford got less than 2 inches pptn and Paradise got close to 5 inches!

We met MRNP geomorphologists today who claimed the flow of the Nisqually leaving the park was less than 50% of the flow at the National gauge  :, what do you think, Gary: is the flow of Big Creek/Cat Creek + Tenas and Goat Creeks greater than the combined flow of the Paradise River, Nisqually, Tahoma Creek, etc. etc., especially given that orographic precipitation meant Ashford got less than 2 inches pptn and Paradise got close to 5 inches!

Well, I suppose ground-water would add quite a bit from the broader alluvial terraces between National & the park boundary, but I agree, that's pretty hard to believe...

Thanks for the specific data...yikes!, me mind is going...