Mille Lacs water levels……….

The question has been asked many times: “how much rain does it take to raise the lake level”? Well my friend JAG has fiqured it out below:

How many gallons of water does it take to raise Mille Lacs lake 1″.

Mille Lacs Area= 132,000 acres

1 acre = 43,560 ft2

1.32x10e+5 ac

X

4.36x10e+4 ft2

= 5.72x10e+9 ft2/ac

1″ divided by 12″ = 0.08 ft

5.75x10e+9 ft2

x

0.08ft = 0.46x10e+7 ft2

1 ft3 = 7.5 gal

0.46x10e+7 x 7.5 = 3.45x10e+7 gal = 3,450,000 gallons to raise Mille Lacs 1″.

Just before the July 4th we received 8″ of rain over a 7 day period. That is ~28 million gallons of water for 8″ of rain. Since the lake actually grows in area as it rises, the extra volume would mean the 28 mi9llion gallon figure is a conservative figure.

Disclaimer:

Since Bob insisted we pop a few beers while trying to work through this worksheet, I’m not 100% confident in Bob’s calculations.

JAG

Bob,

Does it get lonly up there during the week?

Fishing must have really slowed down up there i take it…

Bobber:

I remember in ’93 when the flood was going on on the Iowa portion of the Mighty Miss. One of my friends calculated how they would increase the height of the sandbags. It was really interesting. It is also interesting that 8″ of rain would raise the lake 8″ also.

Mark

Hey people…..I just thought this would be some interesting stuff to know?
Oh by the way…….you need to be thinking “outside the box” while reading this information!

BTW. All that rain you mentioned weighed around 224 million pounds.

Thats only if it wasn’t hard water!

I got about half way through the formula and headed for a fishin’ pole! It’s interesting stuff but by the time my pea-brain comprehends it there’s gonna be ice on the pond!!!

FYI….with no rain this last week around Mille Lacs the lake has gone down around 2 inches!!!!!

So what your saying is 6,900,000 gallons of water left the lake this week. Does the Rum take most of the flowage out of the pond or is evaporation the biggest loss of water to that system?? Are there other rivers that Mille Lacs dumps into?

The Rum River is our only outlet….and yes there is the evaporation factor. That is a very good question that I will have to get back to you on. My quess would be that the evaporation is more than the little Rum River flows out of here.

5.75x10e+9 ft2 x 0.08 ft = 4.6x10e8 ft3

4.6x10e8ft3 x 7.5 = 3,450,000,000 gallons!!

I’ve got to party with you guys!!

Regards

Judge-
Well……….I don’t mean to disappoint, but we only party 12 ounces at a time. But with no limits.

12ounces x 12bevrages=good start, then the sun goes down. Start over, repeat as necessary.

Not allowed to bring up the above formulas, Although there is a good chance Hooks will.

You can bet your boots I might, oh, it might depend on how far along we are into the evening beverages.

Oh and what if we experience a Mudslide……….thats another story?????