sounds like they plan to increase flows from 9800 to max 13,000 here soon(why did they decrease in the first place?)
Oroville >> Flows in the Feather River were to be increased Friday evening by the state Department of Water Resources.
DWR said that at 7 p.m., the flows in the stretch of the river past downtown Oroville would increase from 1,600 cubic-feet per second to 5,000 cfs, and warned the water would be deeper and swifter.
An additional 8,750 cfs were to be released into the river at the Thermalito Afterbay outlet downstream, for a total river flow of 13,750 cfs, up from 10,350 cfs.
The extra water will be coming through the Hyatt Powerhouse underneath Oroville Dam, which will be increasing releases from 9,800 cfs to 13,000 cfs.
No water is being released through the damaged main spillway.
Inflow into the lake has risen with the current storm, and is in the 35,000-40,000 cfs range. That’s about double the inflow on Thursday.
At 4 p.m. Friday the lake surface was at 848.6 feet above sea level, an increase of more than 3 feet in 24 hours.
Thanks for the update. I also wonder why they reduced the Hyatt output, but there might be operational considerations in the plant that they were dealing with. Or maybe, speculation on my part, maybe they wanted a slower river flow while they were dredging a certain area.