Rapid movement of water

Radar-estimated precipitation for Saturday through 5 pm.

This past Saturday morning, an area of heavy rain and thunderstorms moved through central Alabama. My wife and I were at Bluff Creek, on The Warrior River, that turned out to be just SE of the heaviest rainfall that day, a large area of over 4″ of rain in southern Walker County. This part of the Warrior River is Bankhead Lake, and normally has almost no visible flow, and even when it floods, it takes hours or days for the water to reach there. But, this time, we just happened to be there at the right time, to see the rain water actually flowing into the river as it rose above flood stage while we were there!

The first few pictures are of waterfalls, in places where you don’t normally see them. Beautiful stuff, 4 of them within 2 miles upstream of Bluff Creek. Imagine how many there were along the 40 miles of water between Cordova and Bankhead Dam.

The next pictures are of springs flowing upwards in the lake under high pressure, due to the weight of the rainfall in the underground aquifers, etc. These springs were coming up out in the middle of the river channel, in 50 feet of water!

Note the vortex, or swirl.

It takes 1700 mb (or about 20 psi) of pressure to get spring water up to the top at a depth of 50 feet. Water is very heavy.

Category: Hodgepodge