A bit of high water.

Lots of big trees floating past, we haven't had water this high in a very long time. Almost had a very nice new picnic table, it got stuck in the yard, then a big tree came through and crushed it.

61,800 n climbing, you might see a cabin float by soon... Hunker down n be safe !

Same thing down on the Green, never seen it as high in a few years we've had property here below Whitney bridge., it's way up into the pastures. With the rain we've been having all AM I dont expect it to start dropping anytime soon.

A good time to be tying flies/gear...

...or going duck hunting....

Cant wait! Ive actually been rooting for the rain to design a few new channels. Rediscovery of an old river is always fun. Maybe well get a few of those old troughs back that used to be so good. This ones definitely a game changer for sure.

It was just a bit wet today, but the fishing was good.

Fishing for???

Src in the salt?

Yep....water colored up from all the dirty creeks dumping into the canal but the fish didn't seem to care.

Nice!

Drove up the Sky yesterday, water over the road in a couple of spots on Ben Howard. On up to index, lots of wood racing past.

CC -
Not sure how much channel changing you will find after the river drop.

While a flow at Goldbar over 60,000 is a significant event it was hardly a major flood. Over the last 25 years there have been a half dozen floods that were significantly larger than this weeks. Included in that period was the huge event in November of 2006. That 2006 event had twice the volume of water and was nearly 6.5 feet higher than the one this week.

Regardless this flood this week could hardly been timed worst for the basin's chums. Much of this years spawn would have been in their most "tender" stage where even the slightest jostling causing mortalities.

Curt

Been like that on alot of our streams this year and good point curt. We seem to have lost a bunch of summer chum redds out here in hood canal too. Be interesting to see what happens is 2 or 3 years

Maybe a good thing to remind the Dept about when they are setting fishing seasons.

They know about it..the field bio's mention info like this and etc all the time every year. The data just doesn't get used, cause it conflicts with their agenda

Skyrise-
The current forecast method for Snohomish (and other "S" river chum) is fry based. A regression is used based on the fry abundance on various Sound beaches. As such the driver for the forecast is not how many redds there may have been but rather how well the redds produced fish to those beaches.

The method essentially accounts for all freshwater variables but there of course remains the big mystery of how those fry will do in the big blue.

Curt

It's been quit a while since the Sky has been this high, and then it stayed high for several days, the duration of the high water has a great deal to do with the amount of change.

There were more trees than normal careening down river, so I assume there were some changes upriver somewhere.

The recently modified bank directly upstream of my property held up pretty well, but it channeled the flow directly at my bank and eroded away at least 20' of it. With this bank being moved back 20' the flow is now directed towards the center of my yard, I would say with a couple more high water events it will cut my yard about in half.

Ondarvr -
Sorry to hear about the erosion on your property.

According to USGS records the peak flow at Goldbar in this recent event was 62,000 cfs. Over the last decade there have been at least 4 events at least that large; peak on 1/11 reached 63,900, the one in 1/2009 reached 74,000, the one in 11/2006 reached 129,000 and the one in 1/2005 reached 74,600.

You are correct that the duration of the event can be key to the amount of damage a flood can do. According to the flow records at Goldbar flood stage is about 30,000 cfs and this weeks event was at that level or above for about 24 hours. During the 2009 event it was at or above the 30,000 level for about 35 hours.

I suspect that it speaks volumes about the sad shape the Skykomish basin is in when we can see floods the size (discharge twice the "flood threshold") or lager than this weeks event multiple times a decade.

Curt

It gets worse in urban areas. What used to a 2-year flood is now monthly in many urban streams. Or was in the early 90s and I don't see that it is getting any better.

When I say the duration was longer, I mean that while it wasn't over flood stage (15') for more than one night, it went passed 12' on the 25th and didn't really come back down past that until the 29th. Also it depends on where most of the water is coming from. Gold Bar is far enough upriver that it leaves many other tributaries unaccounted for, so what I see on the GB gauge is just one indicator of the flow.

At around 12' the water starts reaching bank surfaces that don't normally see much flow, frequently this is softer and less compact ground deposited from prior floods, with brush and small trees growing in it. This is what much of the valley is made up of, loose sandy soil with shallow rooted vegetation, it's no match for several days of pounding from high water and heavy rain.

While many people look at CFS, I always look at feet, I know what a foot is on any river, and it's always a foot. With CFS, 10,000 doesn't mean the same thing from river to river, or as flows increase or decrease even on the same river.

I was out on the river yesterday, we put in at Sultan and went up and down river. There weren't many changes until you get a ways up from Sultan, the channel that comes back in right by the Wallace has changed at the upper end where it branches off. A very large section of the bank eroded away and it now branches off up higher than it did before, it formed a good sized cove.

There was a large amount of gravel moved around, but there were no major changes we could see with the water still up.

We didn't get down below 2-bit so I don't know what may have changed below that.

We saw no sign of fish anywhere, one guy on the boat said he thought he saw a dying chum. I did land one Steelhead though.

This morning a buddy and I both limited in just under a hour. The water definitely moved the fish in. Caught a really nice coho to... Don't know how Reiters doing/nor care. Way to many dam people to ever make it even remotely fun. I drove by yesterday on my way to Leavenworth and the highway side was packed. Don't think you could have fit a bike in...