Lakeport >> At a 11:30 p.m. on Wednesday, the water level of Clear Lake hit a high mark it hasn’t managed in over three years: five feet on the Rumsey Gauge.
It only managed to hold at that point for a few moments at a time, the level continuing to bounce around the five-foot line for the next few hours, finally hitting a high point of 5.02 feet at 2:15 a.m. Thursday morning.
According to United States Geological Survey records, the last time Clear Lake touched five feet was on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 2012 at 3:15 a.m. The water level during that rainy season topped out at 6.25 feet in April 2013.
After that the numbers began to steadily decline as drought conditions started to set in. By December 2013 the lake level was being measured solely in decimals with numbers continuing to drop.
According to Record-Bee outdoors writer Terry Knight, the lake is considered “full” when it reaches 7.56 inches on the Rumsey Gauge, a feat not managed since March of 2011. That same month the lake tipped the scale slightly, reaching a high water mark of 9.39 inches. Flood level, added Knight, is 11.4 inches.
And the last time the lake got that deep, he said, was almost two decades ago in 1998.
There is a ratio used by those who keep tabs on the water level that determines how much the lake will fill when it rains.
“We call it ‘One to Four,’” he said. “It depends on the time and how much rain we’ve had, but a heavy rain of about one inch will get us four inches of lake level.
“If we get five to six inches [during the next bout of storms], the lake will get up close to 6 feet — that’s typical because of the run-off. We’ve had a good year because of it.”
