Devils Lake continues to 'gobble up' homes and farms

We've already exceeded our normal rainfall for an entire year in Coeur d'Alene nearly six full months ahead of schedule.

Early week thunderstorms pushed our 2012 precipitation total to a whopping 27.23 inches. Normally, our town receives 26.77 inches of rain from Jan. 1 through Dec. 31. Last year, in 2011, we measured 31.62 inches of precipitation on Player Drive, 4.85 inches above normal.

Since this extremely wet period began in 2007 across the Inland Northwest and the Northern Great Plains, we've gauged approximately 35 percent more liquid precipitation than normal and nearly 40 percent more snowfall. Just a couple of weeks ago, Duluth, Minn., was flooded by 8 inches of rain in 7 hours.

We've seen some minor flooding each spring due to the combination of heavy mountain runoff and wetter than normal weather. But, our local flood problems have been nothing when compared to the all-time record flooding in the state of North Dakota in the past several years.

Last year, in 2011, the town of Minot, N.D., suffered its worst flooding in recorded history. Many homes were lost and hundreds of people displaced.

Prior to that disastrous occurrence, all-time record floods swamped Grand Forks, N.D., at the other end of the Peace Garden State, almost 'wiping the city off the map.'

But, as loyal readers of this column, Jim and Karen Hausmann of Churchs Ferry, N.D., pointed out in a recent letter (email), "nothing compares to the historic flooding in recent years of the Devils Lake Basin that now encompasses some 3,810 square miles or 2.5 million acres in northeastern North Dakota."

In a "Devils Lake 2011 Flood Update" presented recently by Jeff Frith, manager of the Devils Lake Basin Point Water Resources Board, Mr. Frith wrote:

"The Devils Lake Basin is currently in a very wet cycle that began about 1980. Total precipitation in the region has averaged approximately 4.5 inches more per year in the past 31 years than during the previous three decades between 1950 and 1979. The increased precipitation has resulted in a dramatic increase in the inflows to Devils Lake, especially since 1993."

According to Mr. Frith, "surface water in the Devils Lake Basin since 1991 has increased by a whopping 23 percent. In other words, what was once just 76,800 acres is currently a landscape of 524,160 acres completely under water."

As an article in the American Scientist Magazine published in January-February 2012 proclaimed; "in the wake of climate change, North Dakota's Devils Lake continues to swell without regard for people or property and with no easy fix in sight."

It's been hard to believe that during the so-called 'Dust Bowl Days' of the 1930s, Devils Lake almost dried up!

Many farmers who settled the land in the late 1800s were almost 'put out of business' by severe droughts in the 1930s, 1950s and 1970s. Now it's the opposite 'extreme' weatherwise that's forcing hundreds of farmers and homesteaders off their flooded properties. More than 500 square miles of once-productive North Dakotan farmland has been "swallowed up" by an ever-expanding Devils Lake, a prime example of what can happen during periods of rapid climate change, natural cycles that go back thousands of years to the last great Ice Age.

Remember, Mankind doesn't 'create' these ever-changing climate cycles. He just makes them worse by failing to be a good steward of both land uses and natural resources. COMPLACENCY is a KILLER!

NORTH IDAHO WEATHER REVIEW AND LONG-RANGE OUTLOOKS

The seemingly never-ending spring of 2012 'monsoon season' finally gave up its last gasp torrential downpours on Tuesday leaving skies mostly sunny but a tad cool on Wednesday, July 4. Ma Nature's early July fireworks display across North Idaho was merely a meteorological prelude to an enchanted evening of visual wonder along the beautiful shores of Lake Coeur d'Alene on Wednesday evening. (On my advice, most people took sweaters with them as temperatures cooled into the mid 50s. But, thank God, there were no sudden downpours.)

Things really warmed up this past weekend on July 7 and 8. We saw our first readings above 90 degrees on Player Drive of the somewhat delayed summer of 2012.

Longer-term, as Randy Mann and I promised, there will be at least another 25 'Sholeh Days' at or above 90 degrees in the Coeur d'Alene area between now and mid to late September thanks to a huge high pressure ridge that will 'camp out' over the Inland Empire for weeks-on-end, perhaps for as long as three months.

We don't see more than three inches of additional precipitation between now and mid September. Most of that rainfall will come from brief thunderstorm activity mainly centered in the mountains to the east of Kellogg.

The 2012 edition of the North Idaho Fair and Rodeo in late August should see mostly dry and warm weather conditions. It won't be quite as hot, however, as last year, which cut down on total attendance. (I still had fun.)

Have a GREAT SUMMER!

Cliff Harris is a climatologist who writes a weekly column for The Press. His opinions are his own. Email sfharris@roadrunner.com