Bill Williams will run this week

[chumley]

Updated: SEE UPDATE IN POST #4 BELOW.
===================================

No, he's not a sprinter.

Bill Williams is one of the four "major rivers" in Arizona. (HAZ Trivia, read about it here).

Anywhoo, Alamo Lake is 7-feet from being full, and they're going to release a nice flow of water for a few days. If you have any interest in seeing this, you might want to head out west to check it out. Or if you were going to be there anyway, you might want to avoid setting up your tent in the river channel!

Hydrologic Statement
National Weather Service Phoenix AZ
718 AM MST TUE APR 11 2017

...Water to be released from Alamo Dam in northern La Paz County Wednesday morning through Friday morning...

The Army Corps of Engineers in conjunction with other federal and state agencies will release water from Alamo Dam downstream into the Bill Williams River to the Colorado River.

Initial releases Wednesday morning of 500 cubic feet per second (cfs) can be expected before flows increase to 3500 cfs on Thursday. Flows will remain at 3500 cfs until Friday when they will be ramped down to the normal release of 40 cfs.

The exact impact of these water releases into the Bill Williams River channel are difficult to ascertain because of river channel changes throughout the years with new vegetative growth. Recreationalists and ATV motorists planning travel to the Bill Williams River area downstream of Alamo Lake should be advised of this 2 day water release event.

Here's a https://hikearizona.com/photo.php?ZIP=205615 of the river downstream of the dam during a regular flow of 40cfs.

I don't know what it will look like at 3500cfs, but this is what 4000cfs looks like at Horseshoe Dam.

[azbackpackr]

@chumley
Thanks for picking my photo, and I may add that at 40 cfs (or more like it, 28 cfs) the river ponds up a lot because there are a lot of flat spots in its bed. I'd like to also add there are not a lot of viewpoints above the water that are easily reached other than at the dam.

It would be a good time to go paddle Alamo Lake, also. Usually that lake is pretty low.

I'm curious what's in store for the lower end, where it dumps into Lake Havasu at the Bill Williams NWR. It'll probably be kind of messy.

[chumley]

Alamo Lake full pool is 1129 feet.
It's currently at 1121 feet.

In the past three years it has ranged between 1075 and 1095 feet (spring 2015). The highest I can find in recent years was 1106 in 2012.

So it's 25 feet higher than it was two winters ago, and 15 feet higher than 2012. This winter, it is up over 40 feet from December.

[chumley]

UPDATE:

Hydrologic Statement
National Weather Service Phoenix AZ
257 PM MST TUE APR 11 2017

...Water release from Alamo Dam in northern La Paz County will NOT begin as scheduled on Wednesday...

The Water release from Alamo Dam in northern La Paz County will NOT begin as scheduled on Wednesday. Whether the release will occur at all is currently under review. New information will be provided in the event the release does occur.

Sounds like somebody didn't get all their ducks in a row.

[azbackpackr]

Haha! Enjoyed the discussion, anyway.

[Sredfield]

Sometime in the '90's I was at Planet Ranch and watched the leading edge of the release come across the ranch road. We were on the other side for an hour or so but made it back across. I heard later that the employees couldn't get across for 6 weeks after that.