.png)
Suicide Basin drops a bit Saturday; forecast now calls it to be full Tuesday or Wednesday
- Mark Sabbatini
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
‘Calving event’ at beginning of weekend is not the start of a flood, forecast fill date is delayed by one day, according to National Weather Service Juneau
By Mark Sabbatini
Juneau Independent
This story has been updated with a new forecast Sunday for Suicide Basin’s fill date.
An overnight drop in the water level of the near-full Suicide Basin is not the start of a glacial lake outburst flood, but rather a calving event that caused the gauge readings to change, according to a Saturday morning update by the National Weather Service Juneau.
An update at the Suicide Basin monitoring website on Sunday projects the basin will be full at about 1,350 feet either Tuesday or Wednesday (Aug. 12 or 13), one day later than the forecast on Friday before the calving occurred. A release resulting in a glacial flood is expected to take up to six days after the basin overtops.
The water level was at about 1,344 feet on Sunday and projected to rise about two feet per day.
The water level in the basin reached 1343.68 at about 9 p.m. Friday before the drop that lowered it to 1,339.84 at about 8 a.m. Saturday, according to a post on Saturday at the NWS Juneau’s Facebook page.
"There was a calving event last night as seen by the bright blue ice in the webcam images below," the post notes. "Large chunks of ice moving around and slight waves in the water have caused an error in the laser gauge readings. There were also low clouds in the mountains last night which could have also contributed to errors in the data."
NWS Juneau on Saturday stated total basin volume is about 2% larger than last year’s release that resulted in a record flood level of 16.65 feet. However, officials have noted numerous factors such as the rate of release affect flood levels during a given year.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.
