[BeauBo]

The water level behind the Three Gorges Dam is now over 167 meters, up about 2.5 from yesterday. The max for the design is 175 meters, and the top of the dam is 181.

Over the last 12 hours, the inflow has fallen off pretty sharply, but still exceeds the outflow (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2kE7m-cbm8 ).

Looking at the weather forecast for Chongqing, the next three days seem clear of rain.

If there were a couple of more days of heavy rain, that raised the level to near the 175 meter design max, I guess that the authorities would have to open the floodgates to release all the inflow, regardless of the effects downstream, to prevent the dam from over-topping.

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

Ping

[KC_Lion]

Ping

[LRoggy]

The most undercovered story worldwide this year . . . watch the lame media try to blame Trump’s trade policy if it fails.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

75 kcms in; 49 kcms out; 2 m rise in 24 hours. And they "might have to increase [the outflow] again to avoid the possibility of a dangerous overflow."

MIGHT? Seems like increasing the outflow is long overdue. If that net inflow of 26 kcms caused a 2 m rise in 24 hours and they are less than 10 m from overflowing the top, they don't have a lot of margin left. If the inflows don't lessen, they will be overflowing in less than five days.

I'd be at maximum outflow now.

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

The last I heard, the rains and flooding came just before the rice harvest, China's main staple crop.
Something more than 60 % of China's manufacturing is done downstream of the Yangtze River and Three Gorges Dam.

[9YearLurker]

Seems just like noise at this point, with the rainy season almost over.

I think our greatest risk of an EMP attack would have been if it had come to a point of massive failure. But that doesn’t seem to be in store.

[karnage]

Scary situation, but catastrophe apparently not imminent.

[BeauBo]

On Thursday morning, inflow hit 75,000 cubic meters of water per second — its largest-ever.

Outflow was raised to the highest ever, 48,800 cubic meters per second.

The current record high water level is expected to peak at 168 meters this Sunday, in the fourth major flood (sixth official flood) of this exceptionally heavy monsoon season (twice last year's rainfall).

The Sichuan provincial government (upstream from Three Gorges) declared on Tuesday a level 1 emergency alert for the first time in history.

Floodwaters have wet the feet of the giant Buddha Statute of Leshan (near Chegdu), for the first time since the communists seized power there.

The last group of 180 tourists had to be rescued from the statue, as the waters rose.

[miserare]

Does not look good.

Prayers up for all those who are in the path of the raging waters.

[sauropod]

bkmk

[Revolutionary]

The down river cities are already under 3 feet of water. The crops are toast. Corruption has left their grain reserves very low. Dogs and cats living together:-/

[Brasky]

Well of course its a shoddy day. It was made in China.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Yes, you MUST release more water from behind the dam BEFORE the surge from upriver from the rains reaches the dam itself - there is always a delay. But once the rain falls, you can only time the delay. You CANNOT stop it!

That said, lake capacity-per-foot-of-height is always slightly greater the higher the lake levels rises because all lake valleys are wider and longer as the lake level rises - that helps. 167 meters to 175 meters is a pretty larger distance, but the spillways should be releasing at their maximum rate now if they are not already. Yes, there will be damage downstream from the higher waters, certainly higher than what was promised when the dam was being “sold” to the country.

Those “promises” of reduced flooding and saved lives downstream were made by the Communist government by its Communist engineers for the glory and power of their Communist leader-dictators. What could possibly have gone wrong - other than the twice-higher-rainfall levels this year?

But global warming was to bring droughts and deserts everywhere, wasn’t it?

[Pontiac]

Authorities raised the discharge volume to a record 48,800 cubic metres per second

That’s 12,680,258 gallons per minute.

With 75,000 cubic metres per second of water flowing in from the Yangtze river

That’s 19,812,903 gallons per minute. A difference of 7,132,645 GPM or 36,678.77 acre feet per day.

I don’t think that they are going to keep up.

[stuck_in_new_orleans]

Another day another story about this dam. Just let us know when it breaks.

[tbw2]

The flooding is bad on many accounts, and the dam itself is deforming. We know that it is bad, because their government allowed farmland at harvest time to be flooded to lower the water levels below where it was three and four years ago without any problems.

[Roman_War_Criminal]

More info...

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-53860309

[SuperLuminal]

"Water levels at China's Three Gorges near maximum after flooding rains"

Licking their lips, Formosa, India, and Japan accelerate their development of newer, more devastating dam-busting bombs and missiles...

[EVO X]

The water level behind the Three Gorges Dam is now over 167 meters, up about 2.5 from yesterday. The max for the design is 175 meters, and the top of the dam is 181.

Learned this with the Oroville dam failure. Dams are designed to hold max capacity if everything works, so they have some wiggle room if all systems are go.

[nicollo]

Any updates on the status of the dam? I suppose no news is good news. The only thing I could find on internet searches today was a Bloombust article, carried by multiple outlets which thus flooded the search results, claiming that the Three Gorges Dam is in trouble if global warming goes up 2% but for now it’s okay.

From that news I assume the breach is no longer a danger.