When It Rains, It Pours

This screen grab was taken from historical radar data from last Friday evening -- June 30, 2017. This and a tremendous amount of other unique weather-related information is accessible through a really neat tool called the Interactive Map Viewer, an online tool made available by NOAA. While it is difficult to make out with all the rain, this is a view of NW Ohio, from the Indiana line (left) to Sandusky (right).

I signed off just before the holiday weekend with a lot of "ifs." If the pumps continued to run without a major mechanical malfunction . . . and if the surrounding dikes continued to hold . . . and if the major storms didn't form (or at least didn't form over the marsh) . . . then we could finally shut off our auxiliary diesel pump (which is costing us hundreds of dollars/day to run) and finally fly in the final 50 acres of millet we originally planned to sow on the East Marsh.

Well, most of the stars aligned, but we missed on one of the critical "ifs" . . . As the image above makes pretty clear, we didn't escape the rain last Friday evening. The darkest red (under the word "States" overlaying Lake Erie) was the first blast of extremely heavy rain sitting over the marsh. The bad news got worse though when the heavy rain continued to intensify, back-fill from the west (all the way to Illinois), and march methodically due-east.

When all was said and done, much -- maybe most -- of the red on the map above found its way to Bay View. And somewhere between 3.5" and 4" of water fell in less than 12 hours . . . probably in less than 6 hours, actually. It ended up being the second largest rainfall we've endured since we took possession of the property. Talk about bad timing.

Dinky Track staff gauge as of late
this afternoon

But as is so often the case, it could have been way worse. At least the seed wasn't already sown -- and now flooded or adrift. Plus, we were relatively dry prior to the rains (the farmers needed the water; just not all at once). And there was nothing severe except for the intensity of the rain (no major wind, no tornadoes, not even that much lightning). And the dikes did continue to hold. And the pumps did continue to run (thanks to the vigilance of our intern, Nate, and our neighbor, Joe).

And through it all, the pumps did continue to bring the water down. Water levels on the staff gauge to the right read 2'2" on 6/20/17, and 1'2" one week later. As of this afternoon, we're reading more like 6". This means we were able to manage another ~8" of drawdown on an area the size of about 200 football fields (200 acres) during the last eight days, despite a 3.5"+ rain. That's a lot of water passing through a couple pipes!

And so we adjust. The new goal is to pump tomorrow and through this coming weekend. We'd ultimately like the water down to the bottom of the gauge, or below. I hesitate to even use the word, but . . . if we can accomplish all that and avoid another "frog-strangler," then we have the pilot penciled in for early next week. It's becoming a mantra, but time will tell.

P.S. Today, much of my energy was focused on starting the formal photo-documentation of our West Marsh. It was hot -- a lot hotter
than I expected -- but I got some good photos. More on that to come, but in the meantime I couldn't help taking (and sharing)
this simple image of cattail and soft-stemmed bulrush (the inspiration for the name Standing Rush). These two are crucial perennials;
it has gratifying to see their footprint continuing to grow within the marsh over the last few seasons.

Rising Water Not Just About the Rain

Crew in action; Roy gets a hand from Julie and Nate installing a staff gauge on the West Pump spillway.
Gauges will be placed in seven or eight locations around the site to help us more accurately quantify
both nature- and human-induced water level fluctuations.

Considering that more than 3" of rain fell in 48 hours late last week and winds have been N, E, NE, or NW for ten straight days (with a forecast for ten more days of those wind directions), water levels are on the brain. May to June typically ushers in the highest annual water levels on Lake Erie. While this is shaping up to be the case this year, this spring has been anything but typical.

High water over the next month or two is tied to high levels of precipitation here and "upstream," as ice and snow melt in the northern Great Lakes and spring rains fall both up north and locally. Seiche (pronouced saysh) events often compound the raising water, especially with an active storm cycle this time of year.

If you have observed water sloshing back and forth in a bathtub or other confined basin, you witnessed a small-scale seiche. On a much larger scale, the same phenomenon occurs in bodies of water such as bays and lakes. A seiche can occur in any semi- or fully-enclosed body of water.

Seiches are typically caused when strong winds and rapid changes in atmospheric pressure push water from one end of a body of water to the other. When the wind stops, the water rebounds to the other side of the enclosed area. The water then continues to oscillate back and forth for hours or even days.

Lake Erie is known for seiche events. Because of the orientation of the lake, seiches are pronounced when strong winds blow from the southwest or northeast. According to NOAA, in 1844, a 22-foot seiche breached a 14-foot-high sea wall on the Western Basin and dammed ice to the extent that Niagara Falls temporarily stopped flowing. As recently as 2008, strong winds created waves 12 to 16 feet high in Lake Erie, leading to flooding near Buffalo, New York.

Because the wind these last couple weeks has been "stacking" water on the western end of Lake Erie (and into Sandusky Bay), and because the forecast suggests it may stay that way for another week or more, our water levels in the bay continue to rise. This elevation in water level is compounded when runoff from recent and very heavy rains have nowhere to go.

The result? Our water levels outside the marsh are as high as they have been in the 2+ years we've been managing the property. The persistence of north/east-dominated winds without a few day break of south/west has been atypical. Roy says he'd struggle to remember such a stretch in his few decades of living and working in marsh country. The good news is, the wind will eventually shift, and water levels outside the marsh will likely go down significantly (probably a foot or more). But in the meantime, we watch and wait.

P.S. Nate just finished up his first year at Hocking College and will be shadowing us this summer. His family has a long history in the area (their cabin resides on the NE corner of the East Marsh), and as a dedicated waterfowl enthusiast, Nate is eager to learn more about relevant biology and resource management. We are excited to have him with us!