Monitoring Reports

This concludes CO-OP's 2012 Drought Exercise. We'd like to thank everyone who contributed their time and effort to make the exercise possible. We especially thank staff from Fairfax Water, Loudoun Water, Washington Aqueduct, and WSSC, who sent us data every day, including weekends, and responded to our frequent telephone calls about simulated changes in operations. We'd like to thank the Corps' Baltimore District Office staff for taking our call each morning on simulated North Branch reservoir releases, and for preparing a table of simulated Jennings Randolph and Savage storages.

Drought exercise simulation day: August 26 2022.

Combined water supply storage at Jennings Randolph and Little Seneca reservoirs fell to 59% of capacity this morning. Today's target flow at the Luke USGS gage remains 325 cfs and the Little Seneca release remains at 25 MGD.

Drought exercise simulation day: August 25 2022.

Combined water supply storage at Jennings Randolph and Little Seneca reservoirs fell to 60% of capacity this morning. Today's target flow at the Luke USGS gage remains 325 cfs and the Little Seneca release remains at 25 MGD.

Drought exercise simulation day: August 24 2022.

Water supply releases from the North Branch reservoirs are continuing. Today's target flow at the Luke USGS gage remains at 375 cfs. The Little Seneca release remains at 30 MGD.

Drought exercise simulation day: August 23, 2022.

Water supply releases from the North Branch reservoirs are continuing. Today's target flow at the Luke USGS gage remains at 375 cfs. The Little Seneca release remains at 30 MGD.

Today's estimated demand (08/23/22) P.M.:
ACTUAL WSSC P.M. estimated demand: 170 MGD
ACTUAL FW P.M. estimated demand: 165 MGD
ACTUAL Aqueduct P.M. estimated demand: 155 MGD
SIMULATED LW total estimated demand: 36 MGD
SIMULATED LW WTP estimated demand: 20 MGD

DROUGHT EXERCISE - Afternoon simulated Potomac flow and demand update (Thursday 09/27/2012)

Drought exercise simulation day: August 22, 2022. Today's target flow at the Luke USGS gage remains at 375 cfs.

Drought exercise simulation day: August 21, 2022.

Water supply releases from the North Branch reservoirs are continuing. Today's target flow at the Luke USGS gage remains at 325 cfs.

Over the past 24 hours the Potomac basin has received between 0.1 and 1 inch of rain; isolated areas in the North Branch received higher amounts closer to 2 inches. The precipitation forecast shows accumulated rainfall estimates between 1.25 and 1.5 inches of rain across the basin over the next 48 hours. ICPRB CO-OP staff will make a determination about the need to continue daily monitoring based on the actual rainfall received and the resultant flow levels. A flow measurement has been taken at Point of Rocks and we are waiting for the rating curve to be revised.

Flow at Point of Rocks dropped below the daily monitoring threshold of 2,000 cfs last Friday. While demand is low right now and there is potential for significant rain in the forecast, daily monitoring has been initiated given that flows continued to drop over the weekend. The Point of Rocks flow is currently below the 25 percentile. The various precipitation forecasts show different accumulated rainfall estimates, but most predict between 1.75 and 2.5 inches of rain across the basin over the next 48 hours.

The e-mail report below concludes the 2011 CO-OP Drought Exercise. The exercise focused on use of our daily flow forecast tool and the newly updated OASIS model to inform decisions concerning reservoir releases. This fall we will be testing a variety of new operation procedures using our planning tools, PRRISM and OASIS, in conjunction with Hydrologic's WRF project on climate change. A brief after action report on this year's drought exercise will be forthcoming.

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