The Big Blue River at Blue Rapids had crested at 61.31 ft on May 31. By June 16 it had dropped back down to 53.96 ft. Today it is back up to 57.26 ft and projected to crest at 59.6 ft at 1am on June 27. As a result, Vista RD east of town is again under water. The first photograph below is Vista RD west of the RR crossing taken this morning. The second photo shows the previous water line at that location. The third photo shows Vista RD south of the RR crossing, taken yesterday afternoon.
At 1pm this afternoon Tuttle Creek Reservoir was at 1131.91 ft. The Flood Control Storage space was at 88.68% of capacity and the lake area was 50,251 acres. The area of the lake at a normal pool elevation of 1075 ft is 10,900 acres.
Tuttle Creek crested at 1135.82 ft on May 31. At that time the Flood Control Storage space was at 99.49% of capacity and the lake area was 53,958 acres. On June 14 the lake elevation had dropped to 1128.60 ft (80.1% of Flood Storage Capacity). There were 10 days when the discharge at the Outlet Works or "the tubes" was 20,000 cfs or greater. Six of those days the output was 30,000 cfs.
The most recent inflow at Tuttle Creek was 48,200 cfs and the average daily outflow was 7,218 cfs. The outflow was reportedly going to be decreased from 10,000 cfs to 200 cfs yesterday. The 3 day prediction shows an outflow of 200 cfs today, 5,000 cfs on Tuesday, June 25, 8,000 cfs on Wednesday, and 10,000 cfs on Friday.
Today the USGS guage on the Big Blue River near Manhattan (south of the lake) was showing a backwater condition and therefore no streamflow being reported. The streamflow of the Missouri River at Waverly, MO at 2pm this afternoon was 221.000 cfs. Waverly, MO is the downstream target that detemines how much water can be released from Tuttle Creek and other reservoirs on the Kansas River.
