The water level in the river flowing through my town is unusually low just now.
Ironically, what caused it was recent weather warnings for torrential rain and flooding!
The water level in the river through the central parts of the town can be regulated by two dams, one at the northern end, not far from a lake; and one at the southern end, a short walk away from where I live. It's the latter that you see in the top photo above.
This past week, there were serious weather warnings for heavy rain and thunder in our area of Sweden, with high risk of flooding in certain places (but not really predictable exactly where). So the town authorities made the decision to take precautions to avoid the river flooding in the central parts of town. However - the worst of the rain and thunder took slightly different paths than expected, and just around here we only got rather normal amounts rain.
... Apparently, adjusting the water levels back to normal isn't quite as simple as just turning on a tap somewhere; so will take some time! ...
(The explanation about what happened I read in the local newspaper.)
Linking to Weekend Street/Reflections #241
It always surprises me that in this day and age, weather forecasting can't be more accurate! We had a rain warning last week and although it did rain, there wasn't enough to fill a teacup! I suppose they decided on an overkill forecast, after having played down the forecast that resulted in the terrible floods in Valencia last year,
ReplyDeleteCarol, I feel it's the same here, i.e. an increase in weather warnings. We seem to have had more warnings than actual rain here lately. Not easy to predict exactly where thunder will strike though...
DeleteSmashing river photos.
ReplyDeleteWhat a thoughtful observation of the river and its changing levels. It’s interesting how even small shifts in nature reflect the care and planning God places in our world, reminding us of both His power and the human responsibility to steward creation wisely. Your reflection encourages patience and attentiveness to the rhythms around us. I would be glad if you took a moment to read my latest posts as well.
ReplyDeleteThe water level certainly looks very low, but you caught some beautiful reflections.
ReplyDeleteJanice, I'm just glad our local newspaper informed us of the cause, as it looks really odd just now, compared to normal...
Deletethe photos are beautiful even with the low water. I think man is just trying to hard and now they are afraid if they don't warn and something bad happens they will be in trouble, God is in control of the weather and I am sure he laughs at the predictions. I preferred my childhood when there were not predictions, we just saw the sky change and thought, wow it is going to rain, or we knew if the wind was howling there was a storm.
ReplyDeleteSandra, in general I appreciate the weather forecasts and find one warning too many better than the opposite. Torrential rain or snowstorms for example are likely to cause a lot of traffic problems and accidents. The number of which may be kept down if people actually pay heed to the warnings and think twice about whether it's absolutely necessary to get out and about as usual that day... So I don't blame our town authorities for the decision in this case either, I just found it kind of ironic that the low water situation in the river was caused by predicted flooding rather than drought... (But you are right of course that we should not get too "lazy" when it comes to learning to interpret the immediate weather situation ourselves, from the clouds and the wind.)
DeleteWonderful shots!
ReplyDeleteWow, it really IS low! I had no idea it would take so long to rise it again!
ReplyDeleteGinny, there are probably several factors involved, including reconstruction of a bridge in the city centre. (The water levels have been kept low all summer - just not quite *this* low...)
DeleteYour town authorities had to make a decision, and since they had no way of really knowing where the worst of the rain was going to come down, they wisely took precautions - better safe than sorry.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to see the river with less water, and since you know it will be back to normal, not worrying.
Meike, I agree :)
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