The lake level

[cedros]

It looks like the lake level has peaked as the latest measurement shows it dropping. Peak about 1/2 meter above 2014 and 1 meter above 2013.

[johanson]

Darn Cedros, I was hoping you were wrong. Yes, darn it, as you said, the lake level just started to go down.

Looking at the Cota in 2013, we were 94.04 meters above a certain point and in 2014, about 94.42 meters above this point and this year 95.14 meters or 1 meter and ten centimeters above 2013.

However in 2010 we were 96.62 meters above 0 Cota or almost 1.5 meters higher than right now.

The point is, we did very well this year and if we keep it up, the lake will be close to what most of us would consider almost full within the next year or two.

Thanks again for the post

[jaykay]

I agree that the pattern of rain seems to be over. It sure did the Lake some good. Now, for whatever it's worth, I took a look at the long range weather predictions of Accuweather, just out of curiosity. Accuweather called the shot on that three days of rain in March, when no one else did. They seem to agree that the weather will be very pleasant for the immediate future. The interesting thing is that they predict rain for the last couple of weeks in December. Now I know that that is a long way out for a prediction, and it very likely will change as we get close to that period, but if they turn out to be right, you would have to wonder- why are they the only ones willing to go out on a limb with a call like that? If correct, like March, what do they know that the others don't? That's only six weeks away. Let's see.

[dichosalocura]

Hey don´t we usually get about a week to two weeks bout of rain at the end of December or early January anyways? Since today and yesterday looked pretty cloudy, I checked one of the weather pronosticators (I forget which one) and it is predicting rain for Sunday.

[El Saltos]

IMHO, it's better to look at the volume state in thousands of cubic meters. Do any of you know what the Cota is? 95 Meters is sure not the depth! The lake has an average depth of about 20 feet. So what does the 95 meters mean? Regardless, the lake is at the highest level in several years. Let's celebrate that!

[alex45920]

So what does the 95 meters mean?

I looked this up once and found this explanation in Spanish: Back in old days, the height of the lake was measured from a bridge somewhere around Ococtlan. An accurate elevation was determined for the bridge and this became a baseline given the arbitrary value of "100." A weighted line would be lowered from the bridge until it made contact with the water surface. The lake height was determined by subtracting the measure of the weighted line from 100. So 95 meters would mean the lake height was five meters below the bridge. The bridge no longer exists and more high-tech methods are now used to determine the height of the lake. However, the old method of expressing the lake height in relation to the arbitrary baseline is retained in order to be able to compare lake levels going back over a long period of time.

[El Saltos]

Gracias!

[El Bizco]

The lake level is still measured down from a fixed point rather than up from the bottom. There are two places set-up on the lake where it can be measured. One is at Piedra Barranada.