Aftermath of Storms

Over the last week, as mentioned in the previous post, there were heavy rains around Pittsburgh. Over 3 inches fell between June 1 and June 5, with most of that in a few hours in two big thunderstorms. On Sunday I went to Schenley Park to check out the effects of the heavy rains of the last week. There had been some fairly dramatic runoff and flooding during this time.


I took a picture of this 'delta' into Panther Hollow Lake before the storms and again after. It looks smaller in the second picture because the lake level is higher. The lake had filled up well beyond its banks and almost overflowed.


When I was at the lake, the water level had dropped to near normal but was still extremely muddy. These photos are a clear demonstration of one of the problems facing this small park watershed - upstream erosion causing siltation in this lake. At some point rather soon, the lake will either have to be dredged, which is expensive, or will stop being a lake, which means people won't be able to enjoy it anymore.


This bridge was washed out before this storm, but additional noticeable erosion had occurred during the rains.

Tomorrow more rain is expected, but without the frequent lightning and risk of hail that was experienced last week. If conditions look good, I'll be going out into the park in the rain to try to look for signs of erosion as it happens.


The park is pretty!

Another item of note: the atmosphere may be transitioning from El Nino to La Nina conditions. This could mean that next winter in Vermont will be much colder and icier than last winter (it may actually snow less - last winter was pretty snowy - but the snow is more likely to stick around). This would also mean a likelihood of a drier than average rainfall season in much of California. We'll see!