The raging Charles

By adamg on Sat, 07/10/2021 - 1:20pm

DCR was ready when you are, Gridley, and opened the locks at the Charles River Dam at low tide to let the water piling up in the Basin flow into the Harbor yesterday, as Ari Ofsevit shows us.

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Comments

Same thing happened last

By Toonie Dave on Sat, 07/10/2021 - 2:11pm.

Same thing happened last weekend with all the rain we've been having lately!

Flood control

By SwirlyGrrl on Sat, 07/10/2021 - 4:42pm.

And lock clean-out all in one!

We were lucky on one side of the dam that the storm came on a new moon.

Lucky on the other side that an astronomical low tide came in time to let it go and release the rising river.

Not really … wasn't that big a storm

By Ari O on Sat, 07/10/2021 - 10:50pm.

Tide midday Friday during the worst of the rain was low at 8.7', but it didn't matter because there was no storm surge to speak of. The tide going out Friday evening, when I took this photo (right around 5:45, which was the time of the low tide), was 1.6' which is relatively close to a neap tide, which is probably worse for a rainstorm, since there's not as much time with the tide out that they can really let the river loose. (This morning was 0.6, so they may have opened the gates again to let it loose.) The spring tide this month comes with the full moon in a couple of weeks, 11.5 and -1.5, which is three more feet of draining power. With last month's supermoon, the tide went to 12 and -1.4.

For storm surge, you want a neap tide. But for a rain event, you want a spring tide.

It wasn't that big here--but

By aegtx on Sun, 07/11/2021 - 8:42am.

It wasn't that big here--but they had to get rid of the water from upriver too. They've been draining it pretty regularly for the last couple of weeks. Yesterday was just the most at once. And I suspect they turned the pumps on, instead of letting gravity do all the work.

Used to do the same thing

By Gregg on Sat, 07/10/2021 - 8:48pm.

On a smaller scale, in cranberry bogs.

It's fun to do in winter when there's 7" of ice because
you can hear the ice cracking sounds, its kinda cool.
You want headphones for this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTMVgDrZs8A