Brazos River Flow

Looks like we may be hitting the river this weekend. One last trip before it gets to be too cold. The water and the night air may be a bit nippy, but nothing we can't handle. A wood fire in the firepit, and the warmth of tequila in the belly, and we'll be just fine.

After reviewing the flow (see the link to the right side of this entry) over the past 10 days, it is low but should spike significantly in the mornings. If we can head out early on Saturday (assuming that the current release pattern holds true), we may have a nice ride down to the campsite.

The weather conditions now over Texas provide an exceptional outlook for this weekend. Upper 70's to mid 80's, with a decent breeze and plenty of sunshine. As stated, the nights are expected to be a bit chilly, and I would expect the water temperature to hover right above 70° Fahrenheit.

My one concern is the level of the release. The gage height indicates an increase of 5', and the normal width of the river at the gauge is a bit wider than our preferred campsite. We couldn't have been more than 2' from the water level when it was running at around 900cfs. According to the graph, they appear to be releasing during the day. However - A chance release above 2000cfs, at night, would be a rude awakening.

Our fearless Brazos leader brought up the idea that this would be a good opportunity to see the aftermath of 20,000cfs flooding on that stretch. We'll get to see what moved and what didn't. Since I don't expect another flood of that magnitude to strike the area before next spring, we should have a pretty good idea of what to plan for when spring rolls around. I'll provide an account to this log, of course.