The effects of global warming are making it more difficult for reservoir managers to control floods and manage flows for irrigation, recreation and fisheries reports Rocky Barker at the Idaho Statesman. Two days of record high temperatures and two days of record rainfall the same week in late April sent a lot of water surging into the Boise River dam system, forcing federal river managers to increase flows to the highest flow out of Lucky Peak Dam since 1998 and just the second time it has hit that high a flow in 30 years. As late as the middle of January, this looked as if it was going to be a dry year, but then the snows came. In March, much of the precipitation fell as rain, causing some rivers to threaten flooding, said Ron Abramovich, a water-supply specialist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Boise. The April heat and rains illustrate the higher variability that Abramovich and others expect because of global warming. That’s making it harder to predict how reservoirs will fill — and what the flows will be in rivers with and without dams.
Source
Climate change accelerating, complicating Idaho’s spring runoff. The effects of global warming are making it more difficult for reservoir managers to control floods and manage flows for irrigation, recreation and fisheries. Boise Idaho Statesman
