About myself

andy@almanor.org

Following is a graph of the volume of water in the lake month-by-month from January 31, 2006 through March 31, 2011:

It just keeps getting better. The lake at the end of March 2011 is at 915,939 acre feet, which is 106.8% of the 22 year average that I have on my whiz-bang spread sheet. When you add in the fact that the snow pack is something around 160% of normal, we are poised for one superb boating/water recreational season. Remembering that Lake Almanor was once just a big meadow, you have to appreciate that there are steep sections and not so steep sections to what used to be the hills around the meadow and are now the land not covered by water. On our western side of the peninsula, the terrain is pretty steep. That means we have a lot of steps down to get to the water, but it also means that we have 30'+ under our hull at the end of our pier. As you get closer to the tip of the peninsula, and in a lot of other areas around the lake, the terrain is pretty flat. Our dock goes up and down, in and out, at about a 1'/1' ratio. In some of the flatter places, the water will come in over 10' for each foot of elevation. One thing that is common to all of the areas is that more water gives us more room above the rocks, old tree stumps, and other things that like to reach up and eat props. More water is safer. 2011 looks like it will be a wonderful (and safe) year for water sports at Lake Almanor.

Any time you want to check out the current water level on a few day's delay basis, you can check out the California Data Exchange Center at http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/queryDaily?s=alm&d=today That will give you the latest raw numbers and you can go back to the ancient days of when the lake was a puddle if you have the patience. If you want to just check the monthly numbers, go to the same exchange data base at http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/queryMonthly?ALM . If you make it back to 1934, you have too much spare time. For those of you who are more elevation than capacity oriented, the following chart is pretty accurate for the elevation of the lake at various storage levels.

500,000 acre feet =    +/- 4,467.00'
600,000 acre feet =    +/- 4,471.93'
700,000 acre feet =    +/- 4,476.50'
800,000 acre feet =    +/- 4,480.89'
900,000 acre feet =    +/- 4,485.07'
1,000,000 acre feet = +/- 4,489.05'
1,100,000 acre feet = +/- 4,492.95'
1,200,000 acre feet = +/- 4,496.76'
1,300,000 acre feet = +/- 4,500.49'
Above 1,300,000 acre feet = time to find out what a cubit is and build an ark.

Now that I've had a chance to look up what a "cubit" really is, I have to comment on it. The word "cubit" is derived from the Latin "cubitum" which means "elbow". A cubit in the most ancient history was the distance from a man's elbow to his outstretched middle finger, which was generally accepted to be around 18" or 45 centimeters. You can generally see a demonstration of a cubit when you cut an irate person off in traffic or otherwise cause a situation raising the ire of a spirited individual. And you probably thought "the bird" was a modern invention.

The elevation numbers are accurate within a few inches. The lake ranges in size from about 20,000 acres at 600,000 acre feet to about 27,000 acres at 1,300,000 acre feet. Those who live on the water get to enjoy more "beach front" property in dry years, so it's a win-win proposition.

To put things into perspective, an acre foot of water is equal to 325,851.4 gallons. At 1,000,000 acre foot level, the lake has about 325,851,400,000 gallons of water weighing more than 2.6 trillion pounds. I'm trying really hard to avoid equating that to about a billion mother-in-laws.

Okay, now from the soapbox department.

Okay, it's not boating season as I write this, so if you are on the lake, you can drink all that you want. There is nobody out there to hurt. If you want to swim, glide on the ice, or try to boat, you can go as fast as you want because most of the docks are in for the winter so your wake can't hurt those either.

What still needs our constant support is the local economy. The merchants at Lake Almanor have to make a living, and when we cut back on luxuries like vacations at a beautiful lake, it takes away the money that they need to survive. When it gets to be slow, they get hurt at least as badly as the big-city folk, and probably worse for a lot of them because they lose not only dollars per sale of the locals cutting back, but also lose a lot of tourist trade from fewer people. So, I'll ask that you please buy what you can from the local merchants and restaurants at Lake Almanor. The food you get up at the lake is every bit as good as you can get anywhere. There are butchers, bakers, delis, sandwich shops, burger joints, and nice restaurants, as well as purveyors of hardware, clothing, and everything you need, right up at the lake. If you have a choice of stuffing your car to the top by bringing everything up with you versus travelling a little lighter and buying what you're going to eat or use up at the lake, please shop around the lake. We've been buying virtually all of our food up here for many years, and not having to pack a big cooler makes life a little easier anyway. I'll put an unpaid (nobody ever pays me anything; even attention) for Peninsula Market. Wally and Chris have not only a good selection of food. They have put together a really nice collection of wines and a superb collection of liquor. Their selection of Scotch, Bourbon, Vodka and other quality inebriants will rival any of the big beverage chains. Go take a look and buy something. Then drive into town and get a nice lunch to celebrate the lake and the peace it brings to us all.

Off soapbox....Enjoy the lake. It's a beautiful place.