Devils Lake, ND
January 29th, 2012 at 1:20 am by Bill Steffen under Bill's Blog, Weather
First, some appropriate music. The picture is an abandoned, now-flooded farm by Devils Lake, North Dakota. Devils Lake is a terminal lake draining a 3810 square mile basin (roughly four and a half times the size of Kent County) with no usual natural outlet. Over the last thousands of years, the lake level has fluctuated to extreme low and high levels. Since the early 1940s, the lake level has been steadily rising. The rise and fall is related more to the Spiritwood Aquifer than to seasonal precipitation. Get this…the lake level has risen 32 feet since 1993, increasing in volume by seven times and in area by nearly five times (262 square miles). The lake has inundated thousands of acres of land, hundreds of buildings and two towns. There’s a satellite comparison here. Flooding has cut off access by roads from the north, south and west. Here’s a graph showing the historical lake level (reaching a low of 1401 feet above sea level in 1941 – and showing the lake level about 47 feet higher today). Here’s a graph showing the steady rise in recent years. Water has overflowed into nearby Stump Lake, causing that lake to rise over 45 feet and now making it a part of Devils Lake! If Lake Michigan rose by 32 feet, much all of the city of Grand Rapids would be underwater. It has inundated prime farmland, forced towns to relocate, and required government to spend more than $1 billion on flood mitigation projects and moving the railroad tracks. If the lake rises another four feet, it will start naturally overflowing into the Sheyenne River. This has occurred twice in the last 4,000 years. Here’s more on the geology of the lake. The lake is four times more salty than other inland lakes because it’s a closed lake, but nine times less salty than the oceans. The road to the old Lutheran Cemetery (now an island) has been blocked by the rising waters. About 5% of the area of North America drains into terminal lakes, ranging is size from many small ponds to the Great Salt Lake. Here’s a nice PowerPoint on Devils Lake. There’s a video here.
Bring on the SNOW and COLD! The radar looks good. I see the NWS is up to their tricks again. Late last night they had GR getting 5 inches of snow and now this AM the point forecast says one inch. Now there is a consistent and accurate forecast if I have ever seen one. WOW! Good for WOOD TV they are sticking to their guns and saying 2 to 6 inches!! I just checked the 6Z RDB model and it shows GR getting a good 4 inches of snow. BRING IT ON! The more SNOW and COLD and SNOW the better!!!!!!!
your border line trolling now RJ. i know it’s for kicks and giggles now.
Just the facts fixxxer. It is time everyone just face the facts. Winter is here and will be with us for another couple months!
No not everyone likes winter.
Yes, I’m with you RJ! I think this is/was an event that the NWS has a difficult time getting an accurate read on. I know, big surprise. To their defense, it has NOT been easy to forecast ANYTHING this Winter. I say we get a decent 4-5 inches of snow and I think it stays around even into this evening!
Looks like a warm up, then chances of accumulating snow next weekend!
Kind of interesting to see what may happen with the moisture as the warmer air begins to come in, prior to the rain, for Monday!
Bring on the snow storm next weekend! SNOW and COLD – gotta love it!!!!!!!!!!
A 32 foot rise in Lake Michigan will give me beachfront property!
Snow blow and cold at the YARDofBRICKS with a temp 24*…Short term 3-6 inches of snow is true with 8+ is a must for thee lk shore for the week’nd theee INDY DEEE AND THE JOHN DEE ARE ON IT!!!! INDYY
ps. only in WEST MICHIGAN!!!
Yes SNOW and COLD! It is winter people and winter is far from over. We have many, many snow storms to go. IF you don’t like SNOW and COLD you may want to head off to Florida!!
H
Hey Rj man we need to start talking Tuesday thoughts are getting blogg strong about our first BIG DADDY storm of the winter year, Fact that storm may be bringing in really cold air with it and lk effectt ohhhh ‘man’ we may have to bring out the family size bag of chips for this one!!! Stay tuned……. Bill better head north!! INDYY
I’m going out to see how the roads are. We are all headed to church.
I’m hopeful that the road crews were able to get the work done on the roads.
Could be rather dicey driving! Take it slow out there, Bloggers!
Better to arrive late to your destination!
THE RADAR LOOKS GOOD. THE HEAVY BAND OF SNOW IS HEADING RIGHT FOR GR!!
This snow event is for you Fixeeeeee….Learn it….Love it…Live it!!!
Morning Brodie (Indy), RJ, and Dan!! Enjoy the snow!!!!!
doesn’t bother me i don’t shovel anymore.
Do you do anything other that come on this site and complain?
Oh morning Uncle Sparkee….hope you are letting Auntie Edna enjoy the day with sledding and hot chocolate (spiked of course), instead of cutting wood and shoveling! Give us a report from the north woods!!!
Looking at the radar, it appears that the snow will be coming to an end hear at the lakeshore before too long. The weather report from this morning mentioned the snow lasting through mid-late afternoon. Am I missing something?
No you are not missing anything other than the models and the experts not being able to forecast the weather accurately.
Stopped here very abruptly by 11. Spent the morning snowshoeing in it. Only about 3 inches fell. Not a huge event.
YES hummer 13 my head hurts today slid home late last night from the casino !! Just got down eating 7 eggs and mater beer this morning !!! Lk effect snow watch is rolling in look for 3 more inches today and get ready I see a BIG DADDY coming up !!!!! West Michigan’s Best INDYYYY!!!!
Good morning. Finally all moved in to the new place near 32nd (Ottogan) and 104th in Holland Twp. Snowing very hard here at the moment. The weather channel predicted “About one inch of accumulation for today.” They’re really kind of useless. We’ve had at least four inches since about 7:30 this a.m. Wind has shifted too, from sw to ne.
can someone give mother nature some prozac please? where the heck did this snow come from?
SNOW and COLD – looking great. Keep it up mother nature, we want more SNOW and COLD weather all the way till April!!
All is looking good out there now!! Keep the snow coming!!
That’s the spirit. Keep up the good work!!
Picked up 2″ of snow yesterday and looks like 2 more so far today. Giving it 30 more mins and i’m heading out to plow my driveway. Snowing good now and 27.3°.
Hey fix, whatever happened to that guy rob dale? Did you run him off here? I miss him making an idiot of himself!
lololololololoo eastside pride!!! come and they GO!!!! INDYY
Yes he was a trip!! Very arrogant!
Rob dale was an idiot and a very ignorant person.
You all need lives…..seriously! Is this how you all get your jollies?
Reporting from ROCK CENTRAL – 2.5 inches of snow today and add that to the 3.75 inches from yesterday we have a weekend total of 6.25 inches! Not a bad little weekend event. This is a sign of many storms to come!!
Should be no whining and complaining here now. Snow for the no snow haters, and by Tuesday it will all be melted away for the no snow lovers!
Good Day,
Indeed…
Steelie
+1
I believe that STORM TEAM 8 does a great job, however there is one forecasting tool that I wish they would get rid of completely. The one where they track the back edge of the precipitation and then tell us when the snow will end. This morning at 7:45 AM this tool showed the snow would end in GR in about 7.5 hours. Well that would equate to approx 3:15 PM and it stopped shortly after 12:00 noon. Last week it was at least 5 hours off for one of the snow events. I would say get your money back from the software company or re-program it so it is more accurate or get rid of it! GO BLUE and then off to the trails to enjoy the snow!!
2/3rds done with winter. IMO.
More
We were slammed south of Hudsonville in the Jamestown area. Woke up to a few inches of snow, waded through it to get to church. I bet the rate was between 1 and 2 inches an hour and it kept up all during the service. We all barely made it out of there! Canceled immediately for tonight, and now it seems we are done with the snow. Now for all the plows to catch up, and we will be breaking out the snow blower for the first time this winter.
BRING ON the warmer temps!
Good Day,
Near Breton and 52nd… Snow has moved East and the sun has come out. A relatively balmy 29* right now. With that said it looks like we will be returning to the “Springlike” weather for much of the coming week. Most of this snow may be gone by Wednesday with a possible return to relatively normal temps next weekend…
Steelie
Above normal you mean.
It snowed until about noon here in Hudsonville, I’d say we received about 4-6 inches based on what I cleaned off the deck and driveway.
A report of 11″ in SSE Holland this morning and 9″ in Zeeland. We got about 5″ here. It was a complete white out for about an hour, in which half of that 5″ fell.
3.3″ here final total
Ran the snow blower for the first time this winter. A solid 10 inches here in Zeeland, and most of it came during the 2 hours we were in church. Must have dumped pretty fast. Thankfully it will all be gone by Wed!!
Crappy michigan winters!
Cant wait for some 80′s, sun and longer days.
Getting in the spring mood myslef fixx
myself*
Great Michigan winters. I have been able use the snowmobile for last three weekends straight. It has been great and I am hoping for lot more SNOW and COLD!!
Rather be 4-wheeling on the silver lake sand dunes. Even though I don’t have one to do that with, that would mean spring! Bring it on!
4.5 inches down here in Portland
having hunted there for the past several years I have seen the rise in water levels and the corresponding loss of farm land. The farmer who lets us hunt has lost 3.5 square miles of farm land and he is almost 25 miles from the lake. They also have a big hurtle with the EPA because most of the land has been wet so long that its growing cat tails and has been declared wet land, so they aren’t even allowed to drain their fields. The EPA tried to arrest him for cleaning out the ditch in front of his house after he lost 2 other homes on his property to rising water. It saddens me to seethe blatant disregard the government has for our personal property.
Progressives always know what’s best for you. They tell you what car you should buy, what you should eat or drink, what kind of toilets and light bulbs you must buy, what must be printed in text books, and what you can or can’t do on your own land. It keeps getting worse.
SE GR has about eight inches of new snow! It all came down in only four hours too!
I shoveled last night about 9 pm, about 3 in. Shoveled again 2 hr. ago maybe 2 in. I m only 10 miles west of GR. Funny how that works.
The driving was bad, you couldn’t see the road, or anything…. Our car slid, hit the curb, and got stuck! It was a horrible idea to try to go bowling, because you couldn’t even see the entrance! This was easily the biggest snowstorm of the year, even though that isn’t really saying much!
A possible SNOW STORM is starting to show up on the models for next weekend and then plenty of cold air and SNOW chances after that! Get ready to ROCK n ROLL GR, because winter is really starting get cranked up!! No people winter is not over or anywhere close to being over.
Don’t get to jacked up because 97% of the time it will end in a crushing and demoralizing bust.
I sure hope your right RJ…Feb 4th is the Lakeview Winterfest with BEVRA vintage snowmobile racing on Saturday, easily our biggest event of the season, right now it’s a no go for racing since this persistent zonal flow crud keeps us from making enough ice to race safely. Frustration hardly covers what we are feeling right now.
sounds good RJ but I will give GR a 80% chance of not seeing a snow storm this weekend
Me thinks that something is mixed up here…comments about snow to the Devils Lake story? I’ll check the previous blog entry for Devils Lake comments?
Well, it looks like I was wrong about the suspected mix up…the comments just gravitated to the snowfall event. I, for one, was out mountain bike/trail riding in the snow Sat. and Sun. It was OK Sat., but tough going Sun.
Bill, I really liked the Devil’s Lake story, that’s amazing.
What’s with all the extra water? Extra snow melt/rain due to global climate change? or does this happen often out there?
William
I wondered about the excess water also. $1 Billion in flood mitigation projects?…sounds like more than enough money to make “an outlet” to somewhere less damaging.
I believe that about GR being underwater. If you drive Lk.Michigan Dr. From GR to the Lk. Its nothing but flat except Grand Valley.
Thank goodness this frozen white garbage will be out of here by Thursday.
I agree!
Back to Devils Lake, I was out there for work in the spring of ’94 or ’95 and then back later that same summer. I was staying in Devils Lake (the town on the north side of the lake) and working at the Sioux Indian reservation on the south side of the lake. It was amazing how much effort was being put into raising the road(s) even back then. The big issue with creating a natural outlet (as I remember it) was that Canada didn’t want the water because of all the sediment. It doesn’t look like I would even recognize it today!