Flooding at Lewisville Lake

It just keeps raining and raining and raining.  It has rained 11.88" so far this month (19 out of the past 25 days) and 19.97" this spring (56 out of 86 days).  This is only the 8th wettest spring (wettest on record was 29.01" in 1957), but already the 4th wettest May.  The wettest May on record was 13.66" in 1982, our first May in Texas.  That record certainly seems in jeopardy since rain is predicted every day for the remainder of the month.  Stay tuned.

In the meantime we slosh through water, which is everywhere.  We are fortunate that there have not been any catastrophic problems in the immediate area, but Lewisville Lake is definitely flooded.   According to this site from the Army Corps of Engineers,  Lewisville Lake was approximately 534 feet at noon today, which is 12 feet above the conservation level (522 ft) and 2 feet over the spillway (532 ft).  These numbers are interesting, but we wanted to have some feel for what that level of flooding actually meant so we decided to check it out in person this morning.  The approximate locations of the sites  referred to in this blog are shown on the following map (blue push pins).  (Here also is a link to an interactive Google map, but I did not know how to attach pins to that map.)

1.  Lake Park Road at Lewisville Lake Golf Course.  First up was a trip to the end of Lake Park Road, essentially the eastern extension of FM 407.  The golf course is closed due to the water, although we saw multiple herons feeding in the ditch along the road and 5-6 Canadian geese camped out on the soccer field.

The flooding is clearly evident from the turn around at the end of the road. 

View from the turn-around at the end of Lake Park Road (extension of FM 407) in front of Lake Park Golf Course, looking north towards the day use area.  There is a road that runs perpendicular to this shot just beyond the large solitary tree to the left of center.  The road is totally submerged, but can be seen in the street view on Google maps

View from the turn around at the end of Lake Park Road (extension of FM 407) in front of the Lake Park Golf Course, looking to the east.  This is the practice range to the east of the golf course.  The tees are in the foreground and the target flags are now out in the water.

It is a bit hard to put these pics into perspective until you compare them to a "before" shot.  Check out the street view on Google maps.  If you look carefully you can see the lake in the distance.  Note the park road which is currently submerged in our pictures.

2.  Lake Park We looped around to the entrance to Lake Park, which is in front of the disc golf course.  It is now definitely a "Lake Park".

Next to the fee station at Lake Park

Looking along the road into Lake Park from the fee station

3.  Lake Park Disc Golf Course  All of the lower portions of the disc golf course near the lake are under water.  One good example of that is the first hole.  You tee off from an elevated tee, aiming for an elevated "green" in the distance.  In between is a very deep depression.  The "hole" is visible from the tee in the picture below.  The bottom of the "hole" or wire cage is about 2.5 feet off the ground of the green, which is at least 4-5 feet above the lowest part of the first fairway, so some of the water in the foreground must be at least 7-8 feet deep!  That's not such a big deal until you realize they had a professional disc golf tournament there on Friday, when the water was only about 2 feet lower.  At least we think they had a tournament.  We stumbled upon their displays when we were gawking at the water last week.  Seven feet of water in the fairway takes golf's "casual water" to a whole new level.

First hole of disc golf course from the tee

4.  North Mill Street.  We next drove north on Mill Street.  Mill Street ends when it turns left (west) and becomes Tennie Drive.  You can see the the turn to Tennie Drive (guardrail and large arrow pointing left) in the distance in the following pictures. 

Looking north along Mill Street. 

5.  Copperas Branch Park East.  I had reported in an earlier blog about the new park, Copperas Branch Park East, that is not yet officially open but is being developed as part of the renovation of Interstate 35E.  We decided to check that out on our way home.  We had seen on previous occasions that access to the boat houses near the trail head was under water, but we were shocked upon our arrival to see that even a corner of the new parking lot is now under water.

The trail along the railroad that leads out to the park is also partly under water in at least one place, so we did not even try to make our way out to the park.  I doubt much of it is above water anyway.

I don't know what to expect about the water level.  The Corps is still dumping water into the Trinity upstream out of Lake Ray Roberts, but they are not letting as much water out of Lewisville Lake because of flooding downstream near Dallas.