The FIRST WAVE of the Rain Event dropped 1.58" of rain on the reservoir itself, the watershed - which is UPHILL from the dam - could have received more, or LESS rain during this FIRST Wave of the Rain Event. (some of the weather projections actually have MORE rain falling in the valley going up towards Oregon for this Rain Event than up in the Sierras in the watershed - others are just the opposite though)

As noted in my posts yesterday my calculations indicated that the reservoir should be able to absorb a 3" watershed rain event. Much of the first inch of that rain will be absorbed by the soil and NOT run off ... AND ... of course it takes quite a while for water to run downhill from the watershed into Lake Oroville, so we won't know how much the lake will actually rise from this First Rain Event for about 36 hours.

IF the FIRST rain event fills the remaining storage space by 1/2 then we can adjust our anticipated rise accordingly for the Second and Third Rain Events (IF THEY HAPPEN) (since the FIRST Rain Event should NOT raise the lake that much due to the dry soil absorption of rain).

LESS than 3" of rain (average over the entire watershed) and the Lake "may" not hit the magic 900' level. IF there is a larger rain event, say 5" or so (average over the entire watershed), well imo they are going to have to spill water out of the Oroville Lake one way or the other ... either by the Main Spillway or by the Emergency Spillway.

I guess now we sit back and wait. We need to see how high the water flows become from this first rain event. How much those water flows raise the lake. And see what nature has in store over the next week wrt FUTURE Rain Events.

From where I sit, 2000 or so miles away, it looks like the Lake is going to fill to the brim ... and then we will see what the DWR does, and how whichever spillway they decide to use reacts.

OH ... they were doing a BUNCH of digging with some equipment last night on the NORTH side of the gate structure just west of the access road to the gate structure, just outside the Main Spillway channel. You have to wonder why they were out there digging IN THE HEAVY RAIN ... AT NIGHT ... ??

Cheers to all ... and hoping that there are NO future rain events for the watershed for the month of May.