How long to fill nor cal lakes?

(wakeviolater) · (wakeviolater) **Join Date: Sep 2004** 03-02-2009, 2:01 PM

so i was curious to see how long, at the current inflow/outflow rates, it would really take to fill some of the lakes in Nor Cal. i calculated the following:

Folsom: 101.5 days
Shasta: 165 days
Oroville: 210 days

this was based on one acre foot being:
288' x 288' x 1'= 82,944 cu/ft
and the lakes having a net positve inflow today of (based on sacramento bee's water storage data):

folsom: ~5,200 CFS
Shasta: ~15,000 CFS
Oroville: ~9,950 CFS

so...for folsom...82,994 CF x 550,089 AF below capacity (977,000 AF full - 426,911 AF current storage)= 45,654,086,466 CF / 5,200 CFS / 60 sec / 60 min / 24 hours = 101.62 days

CF: Cubic Feet
AF: Acre feet
CFS: Cubis feet per second

I think i did the math right, but let me know if i didnt.

Either way...we need more rain.

(wakeviolater) · (wakeviolater) **Join Date: Sep 2004** 03-02-2009, 2:03 PM

can you tell im a little bored?

kidrik 03-02-2009, 2:13 PM

Yes.

(dabell) · (dabell) **Join Date: Apr 2007** 03-02-2009, 6:31 PM

Did you account for water being drained from the lake?

yes, you are bored.

(jayson_49) · (jayson_49) **Join Date: May 2007** 03-02-2009, 6:49 PM

it was just reported on the news (ch3 sac) that shasta is up 36ft, oroville up 48ft and folsom up 27ft. good news i guess?? i think so....

(eviltweak) · (eviltweak) **Join Date: Jun 2008** 03-02-2009, 7:47 PM

the slips open on saturday for folsom

(brett564) · (brett564) **Join Date: Jul 2006** 03-02-2009, 9:21 PM

If a train leaves Detroit traveling at 50 MPH and another train leaves Boston...

(braap13) · (braap13) **Join Date: Apr 2008** 03-02-2009, 10:55 PM

A much simple way to do that is 1 cfs for 24 hours would fill 2 AF. It is not an exact conversion, but close enough. If you look at Folsom's data from yesterday...
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/queryDaily?FOL

Inflow: 5733 cfs*2= 11466 AF
Outflow: 527 cfs*2= 1054 AF
11466-1054= 10,412 AF
Very close to the 10,293 AF it actually gained.

So if Folsom gained on average 10,000 AF/day it would take 54 days by my calculations. Of course I could be wrong, and it won't likely average 10000 AF/day.
And yes I am as bored as you are