Dreaming of a Wet Christmas

Happy Holidays everyone!  Today is my regularly scheduled day off, but I talked my co-worker into staying home with his family today.  I got up and opened the park this morning.  It was very quiet and wet and drippy.  We had almost a quarter inch of rain last night.  I drove through the park, put up the flags, opened the gate, and headed to the office.  I quickly did the paperwork and headed out for a walk.  I opened up the cabin, snapped a few photos and headed back home again.  It started to rain as soon as I pulled up to the house... perfect timing.
The river is still rising.  You can really see a big difference from the last time I took these pictures, which was Monday.  Compare these pictures with the start of the water rising to really see a big difference.  We were at about 8.50 feet above sea level when this all started.  On Monday we were around 12.75, and today, we are a full foot above that at 13.80.  You might be able to just make out the big rock in front of the spring dock in the first photo, all the way to the left.  Only the very top of that rock is still above water.  That was the rock I was standing on when I did the Secchi Disk readings.



I watched a whole tree float down the river. Its always amazing to see the things that float by during a flood. When the river rises, it does a good job of flushing garbage and debris out of the flood plains. We have seen refrigerators, docks, boats, coolers, footballs, trees with birds catching a ride...

The leaves and debris on the surface of the spring aren't moving any more. The spring is at a standstill. It is no longer pushing much, if any water back out to the river. Usually, if you stand at the mouth of the spring run, where the spring meets the river, you can see water coming in to the spring on the upriver side and see water flowing out to the river on the downriver side of the mouth. Water is only flowing in towards the spring now. Its loosing the battle. Its possible that the spring will begin siphoning soon, which means that it will actually reverse flow and water will flow into the aquifer instead of out. Its hard to tell when that happens with this big spring, but I have seen it happen dramatically with smaller springs. It looks just like a bathtub drain when the water spirals down.