Thursday meant playing hooky and watching basketball all day. It also meant that northern Arizona could expect the biggest flooding of the Spring. We had just received an inch of rain over a widespread area that had a decent snow pack.
Edge of the east bank looking upstream
THE DAILY BUCKET IS A NATURE REFUGE. WE AMICABLY DISCUSS ANIMALS, WEATHER, CLIMATE, SOIL, PLANTS, WATERS AND NOTE LIFE’S PATTERNS.
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The Verde averages a flow of just 602 cubic feet per second. What you see here was recorded at 19,900 CFS. It looked to me like the crest has fallen close to a foot by the time I had taken these shots.
The first thing I noticed was that the river stretched from bridge abutment to abutment. Anything more and fields and house were going to be in danger.
The bridge is 1,329 feet long as I paced it out as I walked back to the truck.
The main channel of the river is right through here.
One thing is for certain. The channels of the river will shift because of this event. We haven’t had a decent flood through here to flush out plant debris since 2019.
Looking at the west bank of the river, it was clear that a lot of debris got caught up in the slow down of the current because of the bridge abutment.
The cottonwoods are about to come out and the soil around the river bottom will be very happy with all the new silt and H2O.
We are expecting another inch of rain starting tonight, more more water for our delicate water table. Hooray!
How are the Spring flows in your area?
