Lake Arcola 2011

My not-quite-annual picture of the "lake" in town, close to its peak (I believe) on April 12th, when I just happened to be in town to go with James to the music festival. He thoroughly impressed me at that, with a lively clarinet solo and a lilting duet with a flute player from the next town.

On the way home from the festival, we had to drive through water flowing over the highway between Arcola and Carlyle. I've never seen it flood there before.

The water in Arcola was very high as well, but I think it might have something to do with the new culvert they put in where there used to be a drainage ditch across a vacant lot. Now there is a very long culvert with a house on top, and that culvert just doesn't seem to be doing the same job that the ditch did.

Lake Arcola 2007

Lake Arcola near the peak of spring runoff, March 27, 2007

After all the excitement about the snow this year, the runoff was a bit of a disappointment. I was not too surprised. I had been murmuring all winter that it really wasn't that much snow; the ditches were full, but a good deal of that snow had blown off the fields way back in November, and the snowfall for the rest of the winter was nothing spectacular. On top of that (or rather, underneath), the soil was very dry, so most of the melt water just sank straight down.

Lake Arcola put in a modest appearance, less than 2005 but higher than last year. I wonder if it would have been higher, had they not plowed out the drainage ditches before the thaw. I don't recall them doing that other years.