Brazos Flooding

It's been raining quite a bit out West, so much that Possum Kingdom Lake has had to release excess water into the Brazos River. Now, when I first suspected this, it seemed like a dream. Good water levels on the Brazos, in August? I'm there! After checking the water levels online, however, and after seeing the National Weather Service warning of the expected release, it's a good thing that I didn't make plans. They released far more water than I would have imagined.

First, a little background might help.

A comfortable run on that stretch of the Brazos is about 900 cfs (cubic feet per second). At least, that appears to be the magic number where you may not have to get out of your canoe in order for it to float across the occasional shoals, provided you are paddling fast enough and choose the right path. If it were even higher, that might be better, as it might bring a bit more excitement to the sparse rapids, and might offset the upstream winds with a good current.

Most of the summer, it's been running under 500. There are times when it goes up, such as when they need some power out of the dam. That's hard to predict, doesn't last long, and you don't want to plan a trip just to get there and find out it's running at 300, with 100+ degree Fahrenheit temps.

So, with all that rain, I expected that they would need an extended release from the dam. They sure did. It was running about 7,000 last week. A bit much for a canoeing trip, especially when you consider that it probably wiped out my camping spot. Yesterday, it appeared to have peaked around 24,000. Alright, that camping spot may not even be there when we get back.