Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat North Texas Drought at Lake Arrowhead State Park

This drought is beyond belief!















At least they're placing cedars around the fishing dock while the opportunity exists!

This lake is around 14K acres, down 10' to 12' by the looks of it.

It's bad and getting worse. A lot of the lakes around mu place don't have a boat ramp that's touching water. Some are better than others but most are in pretty bad shape. Maybe we'll get some spring rain?

Looks like Texas: either not enough rain or too much!

True, but it has been a long, long time since my area saw too much rain!

Yep, my pond hasn't overflowed in 10 years. Without serious storms, my pond will look like Arrowhead this summer. Heck, it already does.

It is scary. The west is desert and with the lower rain levels you can imagine the results if this keeps up.

The D/FW metroplex averages 28 inches per year. In the last 3 years we are short 35 inches. This year has also been pretty grim. The unusual snow and ice storms maybe helped a little.

Thanks for posting the pics. I knew it was drought down there, but never realized it was that bad.

Dave, you should be getting some rain in Bowie pretty soon! Looks to be some heavy rain on the radar.

We might get some rain tonight, though not as heavy as what Bowie looks to get, and short-lived...but hey, it's rain! Bring it on!

If Lake Arrowhead is 14,000 acres, and it is down 10 feet, and there are 325,851.429 gallons in an acre foot, that'd mean that the lake is down 45,619,210,000 gallons, right?

Nearly 46 billion gallons, most of which was turned down the Red River after most of the waste was removed, and ended up in Lake Texoma. Since Wichita Falls is either now, or soon will be, pumping the effluent from the waste treatment plant right back to the water treatment plant, a whole lot less water will flow down the Red. I was told that over 8 million gallons a day had been dumped in the Little Wichita and went to the Red. I am not too sure of the water quality because so many chemicals are hard to remove...most of my concern is pharmaceuticals. We'll see.

Wow looks like some kind of gold rush type ghost town in an eary way.. spooky almost

This is slightly outdated but you can see the potential problems for Las Vagas running out of electricity and that part of the country because of drought that could be the new normal.

"Under pressure from the region’s growing population and years of drought, Lake Mead was down to 1,087 feet, a 54-year low, as of Wednesday.
If the lake loses 10 feet a year, as it has recently, it will soon reach 1,050 feet, the level below which the turbines can no longer run.
Those hydroelectric generators produce cheap electricity for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which is responsible for pumping water across the Colorado River Aqueduct to hydrate much of Southern California."

http://www.scpga.com/government-relation...officials-fear/

I survived a probable fish kill last fall due to low water, and see no reason not to expect the same thing this year.

This weather pattern may just be the new norm.

According to a program I was watching the American west was settled during an abnormally wet period fooling the settlers into thinking that was the norm.

I saw an article where core samples were used to determined past droughts going back hundreds of years in one of tbe Dakota states. If I remember right they determined there had been droughts that had lasted centuries. Now that's scarey!

Well, there was a big difference between what the weather radar showed the other night and reality...not a drop at the house. Maybe tonight.

Or tomorrow.

Or...

Dave, your place get any rain last night? Hopefully no damage with the winds and huge hail.

Nope, neither at Bowie or Hurst.

I spent a great part of yesterday painting gates. That wet paint didn't even draw the rain out of the clouds overhead.

How about today? The web says I got about .45 inch.

Probably about right, Dave. I didn't get out to check the rain gauge today, but the new said we got close to an inch.

Dave, we got right at 4" of rain over the weekend, and got 8" of rise in the big puddle. I would tell you how close we are to finally being at full pool, but I'd jinx myself if I did.

Al, I doubt real seriously that I have gotten 4" in the last 6 to 9 months. This drought is ridiculous.

I had .11 when I left my place Sunday morning. checked the interweb Monday and it "claims" I got .45 also. I won't know until I get there this weekend but I guess it's possible. If I had gotten(is that a word) 4", well that's just a pipedream.

We're usually in that dead zone east of the DFW cap. Rain to the north, and rain to the south, but not much here.

We've been on a roll this spring, but I'm not sure any of us will get any after May.

Well, we finally hit "Stage 5 - Drought Catastrophe" in Wichita Falls last weekend, and the surrounding towns adopted the same measures this past week. Wichita Falls-Combined lake levels have dropped below 25 percent for Lakes Arrowhead and Kickapoo.

Additional restrictions include:
•No refilling of outdoor pools using city water
•Commercial Car washes will not be allowed to use water from the city's water system on Sunday and Monday
•Surcharges are increased (betting that these will never go back to pre-drought levels regardless of future rainfall)

But there are clouds headed our way!

I was in W Falls Saturday and noticed that there had been a little bit of rain. None at my place.