[ridesthemiles]

INFO: There are 325,851 gallons of water in an acre foot.

Acre foot==
1 acre of land (43,560 sq ft) covered 1 foot deep in water.

[Thud]

My ballpark estimates of the volume released from the Oroville Reservoir should the emergency spillway be breached have been confirmed by professionals at the Metabunk forum. The worst-case scenario is for the low point of durable bedrock beneath the emergency spillway and parking lot to be at @ 801 feet elevation above sea level. That would entail a 100' drop in reservoir level from the 901 foot elevation of the emergency spillway. Water release in that event would be about 1.2 million acre feet of the 3.5 million at 901 feet.

Metabunk is hoping that the durable bedrock's lowest point is at the 871 foot level. That would entail only a 30' drop in reservoir level and maybe 400,000 acre feet of water loss. The next big downstream dam might be able to handle that.

And the state's overall flood control system seems to be reaching capacity. An early warm storm in the Central or Northern Sierra could easily melt enough of the snow pack so fast that the system will collapse no matter what they do. I suspect there are contingency plans for voluntarily breaching levees in some areas, and letting the adjacent areas flood even if thousands of homes are lost, to save as much as possible of the rest.

[Thud]

I apologize. I hadn’t looked to the post you were responding to, and so just repeated it. I did not intend to be offensive.