I live in southern michigan about 15 minutes south of k-zoo and about 30 north of Indiana and we have been getting some good rain as of late. My friends to the south are getting drowned and I was thinking to myself what kind of problems could I anticipate if a=say my area got 16 inches of rain over a several day period in regards to my overall pond management. I think cecil lives in northern Indiana maybe he would comment?

Eric,

I lucked out. It's farther south of me. We got some rain here but nothing like farther south.

All I can say is have a large enough diameter overflow (mine is a stone lined trench with the bottom at the level I want the water to get up to before overflowing as I don't trust pipes underground even with collars). This feeds into a large diameter pipe weighted down with stone, that dumps into a highway ditch. I have water running out of it 24/7 as my trout pond which receives well water 24/7 overflows into this pond.

The setup I have is typically called an "emergency overflow." I really should have another one too.

However, in my case since I have a well I have set up my ponds so that watershed water mostly bypasses me with a berm etc. You may want to consider a bypass option if you got too much water.

Cecil, Build a big enough berm to get it to North Texas. As usual, we are short on water.