Flooding in Great Lakes by JEWELSTAITEFAN

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Some of you may have heard over the last few years rampant flooding in cities around the Great Lakes. I am in Green Bay, which is on Lake Michigan. I've wondered why we have flooding throughout the city whenever it rains. Folks I know have been flooded out after being in their homes for decades.

Lately I heard about why this is.

Lake Michigan is 17 inches higher than historically normal. And they expect a greater than average snow this winter, providing more flooding in the spring. Homeowners along the lakeshore are having the Lake enter their homes, and are told the solution is to keep their property sandbagged.

WTF?

They are intentionally keeping the Lakes at high levels? Why? I also wonder why I had not heard of this simple cause until the last couple weeks.

Anybody else heard of this, or why they are doing it?

Hey, JSF - this is the first I'm hearing about it. All my experience comes from Lake Erie. Aside from ice booms, and the way they draw down the Niagara River upstream of Niagara Falls at night (where Lake Erie empties into Lake Ontario) to generate hydro power, I don't know of any lake-modifying structures.

But if you look up catastrophic Midwest flooding (2017 or 2018 or 2019) there are stories for each of the years on various search engines. Maybe it's just an accumulation of water from too much rain over the last few years ... ?

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Friday, November 15, 2019 7:23 PM

JAYNEZTOWN

Seem to be an almost global thing these days, every few yrs some place experiencing more frequent severe precipitation events, East and West, North and South the drains back up, sewer water on streets, overflow of water from rivers and lakes. I have a feeling people have dug up too much land in the world and destroyed natural drains, trees, grassland, swamp, bush and shurb and underground rivers that provide a natural unseen drainage, they put concrete and road over the natural drainage systems?

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Friday, November 15, 2019 8:16 PM

I think I had heard back last year sometime that Lake Michigan levels were so high that there are entire beaches in Chicago that don't exist anymore. The sand has all been covered by the water.

The way I figure it, one of two things is happening.

You're right, and they're intentionally keeping the levels this high. If that's true, than it's to make the illusion of global warming hit home harder. But there would have to be a LOT of people in on that action lying about it. I would think it wouldn't be too hard to prove that at key locations with a camera or two either.

You're wrong, and the water everywhere has just gotten that much higher. If that's the case, I think somebody had better start spending some money to dig some man-made reservoir "lakes" for the additional water, because there's going to be a lot more of it where that came from.

We've had an insane amount of rain cumulatively by me for the last 5 years, with this year being the worst so far.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Friday, November 15, 2019 8:40 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Wait a minute... the ONLY reason OCEAN levels would rise is if the polar ice melts. Lake Michigan doesn't get its water from the polar ice, does it ? No, it doesn't. It's , as you said, due to an increase of rain falling. Stuff like this is cyclical, as are the inevitable droughts.

IDK how hard it would be to deny water from going into other lakes. That'd be dependent on what dams and locks are in place. If those exist, then no, it wouldn't be too terribly hard to do and keep it " officially " on the down low.

Seems an abundance of fresh water would be a real $ maker, if you found the right buyer.

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Friday, November 15, 2019 10:29 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Wait a minute... the ONLY reason OCEAN levels would rise is if the polar ice melts. Lake Michigan doesn't get its water from the polar ice, does it ? No, it doesn't. It's , as you said, due to an increase of rain falling. Stuff like this is cyclical, as are the inevitable droughts.

IDK how hard it would be to deny water from going into other lakes. That'd be dependent on what dams and locks are in place. If those exist, then no, it wouldn't be too terribly hard to do and keep it " officially " on the down low.

Seems an abundance of fresh water would be a real $ maker, if you found the right buyer.

But it does flow out into the ocean. So I guess my question is why is it not flowing out into the ocean now?

I would assume that the cost to move the water is prohibitive to actually moving more water away than what is currently being used by people who are already tied into the system.

I would consider it a great mistake to build infrastructure to tie millions more people into the system further and further away from the lakes simply because this is going on right now. Those people would suffer an extremely high tax increase to make that happen, and along with it a (rightful) claim to the future of the water from these sources. What happens the next time their is a drought?

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Friday, November 15, 2019 11:26 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

I think it's like a really large, really tall cylinder that gets filled all at once, and drains out through a teeny tiny pinhole near the bottom. It takes time.

It's only the Niagara River and the St Lawrence River draining all the catchment basins for all of the Great Lakes.

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Saturday, November 16, 2019 12:10 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Wait a minute... the ONLY reason OCEAN levels would rise is if the polar ice melts. Lake Michigan doesn't get its water from the polar ice, does it ? No, it doesn't. It's , as you said, due to an increase of rain falling. Stuff like this is cyclical, as are the inevitable droughts.

Higher average temperatures means more water gets evaporated into the air. The overall projection is that there will be (overall) more rainfall due to global warming, so saying that rising lake levels isn't due to rising ocean levels, and therefore not due to global warming, is a bad argument. Not that the higher rainfall IS due to global warming, but that the argument won't ...er ... hold water. So to speak.

Anyway, as far as I know there are no locks and no dams BETWEEN the Great Lakes and the ocean. Water flows freely from the upper Great Lakes through Lake Erie, over Niagara Falls into Lake Ontario, and from there to the St Lawrence Seaway and the Atlantic Ocean. There are several canals with locks that allow ships to bypass Niagara Falls (Welland Canal) and navigate around some areas of rapids in the St Lawrence Seaway but they don't control the overall flow of water.

*****

I recall being yachted around Sodus Bay by some distant relatives of in-laws, and I was shocked at how close the houses were built to the waterline. Heck, you could step from the back door to the boat dock. I just kept asking ... "But what if there are big storms? What happens if the water level rises?" It just seemed kind of improvident. It's like those houses on the west coast that are built to take advantage of those lovely cliff-side views. What were they thinking?

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

You idiots have been oppressing the entire sexual spectrum as long as you have existed. I can't wait for the day your kind is dead - WISHIMAY

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Saturday, November 16, 2019 12:22 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
What were they thinking?

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

You idiots have been oppressing the entire sexual spectrum as long as you have existed. I can't wait for the day your kind is dead - WISHIMAY

OBVIOUSLY they were thinking that if they piled enough rocks near the bottom, the loose sand they built on wouldn't get swept away!

But when the water's just right, that thing over the edge can be both a patio AND a diving platform!

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Saturday, November 16, 2019 1:52 PM

WISHIMAY

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

The way I figure it, one of two things is happening.

You're right, and they're intentionally keeping the levels this high. If that's true, than it's to make the illusion of global warming hit home harder.

"They're"???

You realize "They" can't control AN ENTIRE BODY OF WATER, especially one the size of THE GREAT LAKES... right?

Jesus, y'all are just incredibly dumb. Even my KID knows this one...

"The source of water levels in the lakes is tied to what was left by melting glaciers when the lakes took their present form. Annually, only about 1% is "new" water originating from rivers, precipitation, and groundwater springs that drain into the lakes."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes

1% a year keeps adding up when the shoreline isn't allowed to fluctuate naturally because idiot humans build on something THAT CHANGES NATURALLY.

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Saturday, November 16, 2019 2:23 PM

Obviously the nuance was missed on our resident Troll from Nilbog.

That's the least plausible scenario here, and I don't think that this is happening.

Go play with your husband's balls. They're in your purse unless you forgot to put them back last time.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Saturday, November 16, 2019 3:03 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by WISHIMAY:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
The way I figure it, one of two things is happening.

You're right, and they're intentionally keeping the levels this high. If that's true, than it's to make the illusion of global warming hit home harder.
"They're"???

You realize "They" can't control AN ENTIRE BODY OF WATER, especially one the size of THE GREAT LAKES... right?

Jesus, y'all are just incredibly dumb. Even my KID knows this one...

"The source of water levels in the lakes is tied to what was left by melting glaciers when the lakes took their present form. Annually, only about 1% is "new" water originating from rivers, precipitation, and groundwater springs that drain into the lakes."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes

1% a year keeps adding up when the shoreline isn't allowed to fluctuate naturally because idiot humans build on something THAT CHANGES NATURALLY.

Yep, it has taken all of the time since the last Ice Age to drain the Great Lakes to this point.

Sho yo write.

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Saturday, November 16, 2019 3:05 PM

Seems Lake Michigan is only about 17" higher than a year ago. About 50 " higher than the low point, if I read things correctly. Still 4" below the highs of 1985/86.

Found some useful webpages, more later.

tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/gldatums.html

www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/10/21/fall-winter-m
ichigan-lake-level-woes/2278124001/

www.lre.usace.army.mil/missions/great-lakes-information-water-levels/w
ater-level-forecast/weekly-great-lakes-water-levels/

I can't find info on tides around Detrtoit or Chicago. Anybody know info on this?

Elevations (Low Water Datums, in feet)
601.1 Lake Superior

600.4 Upper St Mary's River @ S.W. Pier

578.7 Lower St Maryu's River @ U.S. Slip
577.8 Lower St Mary's River @ West Neebish Island
577.5 Lower St Mary's River @ Rock Cut, MI

577.5 Lake Huron/Michigan

577.2 St Clair River @ St Gratiot
576.7 @ Dunn Paper
576.2 @ Mouth of Black River
575.8 @ Dry Dock
575.3 @ Marysville
574.4 @ St Clair State Police
572.8 St Clair River @ Algonac (40 miles long, 20 feet depth through most of it's length)
Discharge: 182,000 cu ft/sec

572.3 Lake St Clair

572.0 Detroit River @ Windmill Point (53 ft deep)
571.1 @ Fort Wayne
570.7 @ Wyandotte
569.5 Detroit River @ Gibraltar, MI (32 miles long, depth of 10-60', average of 35'. Width of 1/2 mile to 3 miles.)
Current is 2 1/2 - 6 miles per hour. Discharge: 190,000 cu ft/sec, relatively constant.

569.2 Lake Erie

n/a Niagara River

243.3 Lake Ontario

243.0 St Lawrence River @ Alexandria Bay, NY
242.4 St Lawrence River @ Ogdensburg, NY

It sounds like a big culprit naturally is Too Cold, freezing over Superior and Michigan, maybe Huron - which stops evaporation.

I know Huron and Michgan are 2 globes of the same lake. St Mary's River has a flow control out of Superior - maybe at Sault St Marie, or Soo Locks. Yes, Sault, Souix, and Soo are all pronounced Sue.

Superior, Michigan/Huron are not at record levels (4" below record high, about 50" above record low), but St Clair Lake has been at record levels for numerous months now.

This link indicates the Huron/Michigan levels are 2 feet lower due to dredging on St Clair River.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Clair_River

more later.

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Saturday, November 16, 2019 3:18 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

It got me to thinking:

Lake Michigan
"The lake's average depth is 46 fathoms 3 feet (279 ft; 85 m), while its greatest depth is 153 fathoms 5 feet (923 ft; 281 m)."

Going to The State of the Climate https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/ I found that starting 2015 and on, the area surrounding Lake Michigan has had above average to record rainfall. I'm going to estimate 25% above normal just to spitball what a result might be.

If 1% influx is normal rainfall, and that keeps lake levels in balance, then 1% of the average depth is due to rainfall or, roughly, 2.8 feet. If I assume that an increased contribution is roughly 25%, then an extra roughly 3/4 feet additional is added per year. If that's happened 5 years in a row, then Lake Michigan's level would rise by 3.75 feet.

So yes, depending on the specific numbers, it's entirely possible that extra rainfall would raise Lake Michigan's level considerably.

But going to the The State of the Climate, in addition, I found that lake levels are also affected by ice cover - the more and longer-lasting the ice cover, the deeper the lake gets. That's a detail I'm not going to pursue, since I can't find ice cover figures very quickly (they may not even be generally recorded).

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Sunday, November 17, 2019 1:07 AM

WISHIMAY

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

Go play with your husband's balls. They're in your purse unless you forgot to put them back last time.

Naw, he put them back after we got done last night. He tried something new on ME this time. I didn't crawl out of bed until after 11 this morning.

BTW, I have a HUGE purse

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Sunday, November 17, 2019 1:48 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Seems Lake Michigan is only about 17" higher than a year ago. About 50 " higher than the low point, if I read things correctly. Still 4" below the highs of 1985/86.

I'm assuming you mean ' ( FEET ) and not " ( inches ).

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Monday, November 18, 2019 7:40 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Quote:
Seems Lake Michigan is only about 17" higher than a year ago. About 50 " higher than the low point, if I read things correctly. Still 4" below the highs of 1985/86.
I'm assuming you mean ' ( FEET ) and not " ( inches ).

Sorry, no.

Those are all inches.

Those inches have erased several dozen State Parks in Michigan, all shoreline parks. Many beaches in MI, IL, WI, IN are gone. Highways are under water. In Green Bay, whole neighborhoods flood whenever it rains. Last year an entire street was condemned, all of the houses on it, and the Firehouse took 9 months to be restored.

All of the rivers in the watershed are backed up, nowhere to go, and flooding everything around.

Have you ever seen a Great Lake?

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Monday, November 18, 2019 11:25 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Quote:
Seems Lake Michigan is only about 17" higher than a year ago. About 50 " higher than the low point, if I read things correctly. Still 4" below the highs of 1985/86.
I'm assuming you mean ' ( FEET ) and not " ( inches ).
Sorry, no.

Those are all inches.

Those inches have erased several dozen State Parks in Michigan, all shoreline parks. Many beaches in MI, IL, WI, IN are gone. Highways are under water. In Green Bay, whole neighborhoods flood whenever it rains. Last year an entire street was condemned, all of the houses on it, and the Firehouse took 9 months to be restored.

All of the rivers in the watershed are backed up, nowhere to go, and flooding everything around.

Have you ever seen a Great Lake?

That's what happened here a few months back when I had water covering 75% of my property...

The system in place is meant to drain all of that water in a few other systems that eventually drain into Michigan. But there is less and less room for all of that to go, and when you get 12" of rainfall in a 20 hour period along with everybody in a 100 mile radius from you, they had to temporarily shut down the system altogether for hours.

Thankfully, as more and more frontage at my house got full, it was taking longer and longer for it to become flooded as it crept up. More surface area meant more rainfall was necessary to keep rising.

It doesn't take much as far as height when you're talking a great lake or five to flood. I'm sitting on roughly 45,000 sq feet here.

Lake Michigan is 22,394 square miles. Multiply that by 17" (right?... 17x1x1 for the cubic gain per square inch?).

hmmmmmm....

22,394 square miles = 89,904,494,592,000 square inches.

89,904,494,592,000 sq inches x 17" = 1,528,376,408,064,000 cubic inches additional.

(1728 cubic inches = 1 cubic foot)

1,528,376,408,064,000 cubic inches / 1728 = 884,477,088,000 cubic feet.

(147,197,952,000 cubic feet = 1 cubic mile)

884,477,088,000 cubic feet / 147,197,952,000 = 6.009 cubic miles

lol... it occurs to me that I probably screwed something up along the way here and my math is badly flawed here.

Maybe I got it right though. Although at this point, I'm not exactly sure what I was even getting at in the first place...

.....

Oh... Right!

Could you imagine what 1 cubic mile of water would look like, let alone 6 of them next to each other?

lol... A two mile wide fish tank, that was three miles long and reaching out 1 mile high into the sky. (10,560ft. wide x 15,840ft. long x 5,280ft. high)

If my math is right, that's how much extra water is on top of Lake Michigan this year as opposed to the same time last year according to the report JSF provided.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, November 18, 2019 11:52 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Sorry , but I live by lakes which can vary in feet in severe droughts, so a few inches doesn't seem like very much.

Yes, the Great Lakes are much larger, and a few inches does translate to massive amounts of water, I get that, but hell.... during flood years, that's normal. Humans aren't the final arbiters of how the weather ebbs and flow on this planet. We literally don't know from experience what this planet has seen or is capable of doing.

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Tuesday, November 19, 2019 12:09 AM

I thought I'd have a bit more fun with that...

But if my original math was wrong this is just making it exponentially worse.

How tall would that much additional water be if it were only on my roughly 45,000 sq ft of land instead of spread out over 6 sq miles?

Let's call it 44,100 sq ft (210ft x 210ft) for simplicity's sake...

210ft wide x 210ft long x 20,056,169.79594ft tall = 884,477,088,000.95 cubed feet. (which is what I had figured the additional water to be earlier in what might be flawed math).

lol

20,056,170 feet of water on my lot with nowhere to drain...

That's 1,118 miles taller than the United States is wide horizontally, and almost 13 times taller than the outer limits of the atmosphere of the Earth.

Pretty safe to say my first floor would have flooded.

I don't care if the math is wrong.... that's just fun to think about.

But seriously, if my math is wrong and anybody cares to double check it let me know.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Sunday, December 1, 2019 4:19 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Sorry , but I live by lakes which can vary in feet in severe droughts, so a few inches doesn't seem like very much.

Yes, the Great Lakes are much larger, and a few inches does translate to massive amounts of water, I get that, but hell.... during flood years, that's normal. Humans aren't the final arbiters of how the weather ebbs and flow on this planet. We literally don't know from experience what this planet has seen or is capable of doing.

Yes, I am familiar with properties on lakes and rivers which vary widely, by feet, and which are often controlled by dams.

But The Great Lakes are effectively stable, without a Dam controlling or manipulating the level. Except currently Lake Superior. The discharge at Detroit of the lake known as Michigan/Huron is several miles wide. Adding 17" should increase the discharge rate, and widen the span, and when the river reaches Niagara, it drops hundreds of inches.

Properties, roads, structures, beaches built upon the shores are expecting reliable water levels, or so I had thought. Entire portions of cities are now flooding regularly, entire neighborhoods condemned from flooding.

Without considering the waves of the ocean, how would you think folks in Miami would react if the ocean rose 17"? Or the shores of your state? The Islands off the Eastern Coast? Miami is stated as Elevation of 6 feet. With an increase of 17", a 4 foot wave would flood the whole city.

I believe that Lake Michigan is about 90 miles from WI to MI, which I think is the span of FL to Cuba.
That is a lot of water to rise 17", and why has it not drained out the excess? The level at Detroit is the same as Chicago, each day. Although I don't think it is the same time of each day.

Does that help make sense?

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Wednesday, March 4, 2020 7:53 PM