The slough is as calm as can be and the ice is still firm in many sections of the Kuskokwim. Earl Samuelson flew the river tonight and noticed numerous sections in the vicinity of Aniak that are still fairly solid. However, the approaching warm weather will likely put an end to that…at least we’re hoping since it’s going to be in the 60′s come tomorrow and through the weekend. Here’s the forecast for the next few days.
Here’s what Mark Leary has to report from Napaimute: The 1.5 mile long jam here at Napaimute released at 3 pm. Water dropped hard – estimated 3 to 4 feet. Ice still holding five miles below at John Borowski’s on down the River. Another run of ice is passing Napaimute and the water is back up but 1.5 feet lower than it was at it’s highest. River Watch reports ice jam still holding 14 miles above Napaimute but slowly deteriorating. A couple of panoramic pictures of the current conditions at Napaimute are attached. Whew – lots of mosquitoes today! And [Read More...}
All the local ice has moved past Aniak, with a large swath of open water along the sea wall and out past the gravel pit. The water level, however, has risen about a foot since this morning.
For now, Crooked Creek and Napaimute are spared any flooding concerns. NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ANCHORAGE AK 753 PM AKDT WED MAY 22 2013 …FLOOD WARNING IS CANCELLED FOR THE KUSKOKWIM RIVER NEAR CROOKED CREEK… THE ICE JAM WHICH HAD FORMED DOWNSTREAM OF CROOKED CREEK AT RABBIT ISLAND HAS SHIFTED TO ALLOW WATER TO FLOW AROUND THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE ISLAND. WATER LEVELS AT CROOKED CREEK HAVE BEEN DROPPING. EXPECTED IMPACTS: WATER LEVELS SHOULD BE HOLDING STEADY OR DROPPING OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS. …THE FLOOD WARNING HAS BEEN CANCELLED FOR THE KUSKOKWIM RIVER AT NAPAIMUTE… KUSKOKWIM RIVER LEVELS [Read More...}
The river at Napaimute has risen almost four feet today, with a big push of ice passing around 9:00 pm before it stopped. According to Mark Leary, the jam appears to be at Victoria Creek. He said that John Borowski, who lives five miles below Napaimute, hasn’t seen any ice movement. At this time there is mostly open water upstream of Napaimute.
For those of us impatient folks here in Aniak and Chuathbaluk, it may still be a few days until the river breaks up. The River Watch patrol reports that there is still solid ice (still very blue) between Aniak and Chuathbaluk while ice downriver between Kalskag and Tuluksak is brown and appears very soft. During much of the day there has been substantial movement in the vicinity of Napaimute, but there still seems to be stretches of solid ice downstream of Napaimute. Mark Leary took this picture that is very suspicious. We all know that beavers like backing up water [Read More...}
Once the jam broke below Crooked Creek the water level dropped 6 feet rather quickly. Napaimute is now seeing an increase in water level from that release. Mark Leary reports that the water is the highest it’s been so far, and he expects it to continue to rise. In his words, “there is a big push of water passing”. It’s likely that barring no substantial jams between Napaimute and Aniak, we could see a domino effect to where the ice in Aniak will finally be doing something rather than just sitting there and slowly melting.
The National Weather Service canceled the flood watch for Crooked Creek and upgraded the status to flood warning due to a jam downstream of the village. 1223 PM AKDT WED MAY 22 2013 THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN ANCHORAGE HAS ISSUED A * FLOOD WARNING FOR KUSKOKWIM RIVER AT CROOKED CREEK * UNTIL 400 PM AKDT THURSDAY * AT 1218 PM AKDT WEDNESDAY AN ICE JAM JUST DOWNSTREAM FROM CROOKED CREEK HAS RESULTED IN RIVER LEVELS RISING 3 FEET TO JUST BELOW FLOOD STAGE AT CROOKED CREEK. RIVER LEVELS WILL LIKELY CONTINUE RISING UNTIL THE ICE JAM RELEASES. FLOODING IS [Read More...}
I must apologize, but we won’t see a record breakup date for at least another week here in Aniak…if the river holds that long. I was using a limited data set by NOAA for comparison, one that only went back to the early 70′s when for some reason data have been collected for McGrath and Bethel since the 20′s. Susan Hubbard pointed out that in 1964 Sleetmute flooded so badly that the entire village was under water for two weeks beginning on the 27th of May. Since Aniak usually goes a little later, that would put Aniak around the first [Read More...}
The Army Corps of Engineers will give a public presentation on the latest happenings of the Donlin Gold EIS project tonight (May 22) at 6:00 PM at the ONC multi-purpose building in Bethel (a.k.a. the old bowling alley). The Corps will present a summary of the scoping comments collected recently during the initial scoping phase. There will also be a call-in show on KYUK Thursday at 2:00 PM where the Corps will answer questions the public has. For those not in the local area, you can live stream the show at KYUK’s website (www.kyuk.org) – just click on the stream [Read More...}