Fast Flood

June has been hot and dry except for some brief heavy rains. Today gentle soaking rain was followed by fairly heavy rain with total 1.5 inches rainfall by noon. I have been three weeks away out of the Woods (and there would be few or no ticks), so I decided to go for a walk. Entering via the SW Gate and walking up the Main SW trail I encountered a fast moving snout of flooding water heading along the trail, filling the southern Woods. I walked into the flood and found the water deeper than I had seen before. I quickly over topped my boot. Everywhere the water was flowing, rippling SW. The southern Woods will be drowned for a couple weeks. One moderate sized hackberry tree that had been dead and leaning heavily has fallen across the SW trail and will need to be cleared.

The water was the color of mocha coffee, carrying silt, run-off from across the Woods; from the Lloyd Noble Center and campus parking. This may be the cause of the death of the old oaks and other mature hardwoods in the southern and western sections of Oliver's Woods. [Lloyd Noble Ctr opened in 1975 with significant expansion on the south side in 2001. Estimated built & paved size: 60-70 acres. This pavement will produce the run-off that floods under Highway 9 and into the Woods.]

Wading east there was an abrupt change of water to the color of bright clay red. The color of tomato soup with milk stirred in.. a large spill over from the erosion fences on the north side of the construction/ bulldozers for the new trash station. I walked to the South Boundary Trail thinking it would be better; but it was deeper there. The water by the metal sign bill board was over my boot (max depth about 27 inches or 68 cm.. mid thigh depth). By the G0 post the water was 1.5 units below the bottom of the painted zero. North across the dune to the dam, the water was rippling upstream over the low dam.

At the Tall Stump junction I saw ants, millipedes and one firefly larva climbing the stump, heading for high ground. The ants carried their brood.

East on the E-W Fence Line trail to the Elm Bridge. I could barely get across the full flowing wash balanced on the bare top log.

Crossing west on the Burr Oak Bridge and north on the Northern Loop I found a tide of water had flattened the grasses along the southeastern end of the Northern Loop.

Backed up by the massive burr oak washed into the stream at the junction of the East and West Wash, water had overflowed the top of the western levee.
Above the wash junction, by the cluster of cottonwoods, water had flowed over the lower eastern shoulder of the levee but had had not crossed the top of the levee wall.

Walking along Hackberry Alley, and heading out via the Ponds Trail the rain started to fall moderately heavily again and I listened to the sound as it filled the green Woods.