Pend Oreille nearing bankfull stage
Due to flooding, including this cart path over the Pack River, the Idaho Club will not be able to host the 4A Idaho State Golf Championships on Monday and Tuesday, and the tournament will instead be played at Stoneridge Golf Course. Heavy runoff and recent rains have flooded portions of the course from holes No. 14-18, rendering it unplayable for now, with levels potentially rising in the next few days. “You could see the water creeping up onto the green. It’s what’s going to happen with temps in the 70s on Saturday and Sunday, so we had to move the tournament,” said SHS a…
SANDPOINT — Public safety officials in Bonner County are making sand and sandbags available to residents as water levels in the Pend Oreille basin increase.
Bonner County Emergency Management has deposited sand and distributed bags at the following locations:
- Bonner County District 2 Road & Bridge Shop, Eastside Road, Priest River
- Northside Fire District Station No. 1, Ponderay, (empty sandbags only)
- Northside Fire District Station, Rapid Lightning Road (across from Pack River Store)
- Samowen Fire District, Old Sam Owen Road, Hope (empty sandbags only)
- Sandpoint City Shop, 2024 Industrial Drive
- Selkirk Fire Rescue & EMS Station, Gun Club Road, Sagle
The level of Lake Pend Oreille at Hope was at 2,060.53 feet, according to a flood warning issued by the National Weather Service in Spokane on Thursday afternoon. The lake’s flood stage is 2,063.5 feet, which is a foot above the lake’s normal pool elevation.
The Weather Service is forecasting the lake will reach an elevation of 2,063.82 feet by Wednesday, the agency said in the flood warning.
Those levels are based on National Geodetic Vertical Datum from 1929. The 2,063.5 level in the NGVD29 datum is equivalent to an elevation of 2,067.3 feet on Federal Emergency Management flood insurance rate maps.
The lake’s bankfull stage, where it has essentially reached capacity, is 2,062.6 feet in NGVD29 terms. The lake is forecasted to rise to bankfull stage Sunday night.
A wet weather system moved through the area on Thursday.
“This will be followed by a significant warm up this weekend into next week will result in increasing runoff from mountain snow melt. This will keep river levels high into next week,” the Weather Service said in a hydrologic statement issued on Thursday.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said this year’s flood potential could resemble flooding in 2011, when the lake crested at 2,064.3 feet and resulted in minor flooding in the Pack and Clark Fork river valleys, in addition to Sandpoint and Bayview.
Flooding of some lakeside homes and docks can is likely if the level reaches 2,065.5 feet on the NGVD29 scale. Major flooding can be expected if the level rises to 2,069 feet, according to the Weather Service.
The lake’s most historic crest on record occurred in 1894, when the lake reached 2,075.88 feet. The second-highest crest was 2,071.62 feet, which took place in 1948, Weather Service records indicate.
A flood warning is being issued for the Pend Oreille River below Albeni Falls Dam. It takes effect today and will remain in place until further notice.
The Weather Service said the combination of rainfall and melting snow will lead to continuing flood levels. Downstream flows on Thursday were clocked at 87,800 cubic feet per second, resulting in a forecast of minor flooding. The river is expected to surpass the minor flood stage of 95,000 cfs today.
“It will continue to rise on through the weekend but remain below the moderate flood flow of 120,000 cfs for much of the workweek. There is a possibility for the river to cross into moderate flood flow of 120,000 cfs on May 18 but confidence is low this far out,” the river warning said.
Keith Kinnaird can be reached by email at kkinnaird@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow him on Twitter @KeithDailyBee.