Water Elevations This Weekend

[Justin]

I drove all the way to the elk this weekend to find that the water was extremely high.  I have never seen it like that.  There was nowhere to wade fish from.  I would say that the river was 6 -7 feet higher than the highest I have ever seen.  Pretty dangerous stuff.  The river was, in some spots twice as wide as it usually is. 
I have a couple of questions to avoid making this drive for no reason again:

1.  This summer, the turbine was supposedly running constantly.  the water was still very wadeable and nowhere near as high as it was this weekend. Elevations from the TVA webpage don't look  any higher than they were this summer.  Are these charts wrong?  Could anybody point me towards a reliable indicator(elevation number, chart, etc) of how high the water is?  Also, could anybody with experience on the river tell what the elevation is that makes the river too high to wade?


2.  Was this increase in water flow natural, or is it just a result them pumping out of the dam at full blast?  Any info on the dam would be apppreciated.


thanks

[Justin]

Ok, I just answered my question.  I just talked to TVA River Operations.


Elevation this weekend was 749 ft (which you can see on the website).  Elevation this summer was 743.   So that explains the 6 ft increase i saw this weekend.  I wish they would show a River elevation over time graph for historical comparisons, in addition to the lake elevation over time graph you see on the website.   From what they said, water will be like this until the end of December, when it gets back down to winter pool levels at Tims Ford.  So that sucks, no fishing over the holiday. If anybody sees otherwise give me a shout!

[TWiles]

http://www.tva.gov/lakes/tfh_r.htm

Hourly discharge is around 3700cfs..that's a lot of water, especially in a tiny river channel.  Is shoot for 800 or less.

[mrl0004]

Justin,
   I didn't check the elevations until Saturday morning and I messaged you back that the levels were too high to wade. Sorry you didn't get it in time. I hate that you wasted a trip up there. I have the TVA app on my phone where I can monitor the releases.

[mholt]

Sometimes the discharge is posted in correctly during the winter time especially.  Always good to check with someone who can tell you what has been happening over a several day period.  This was a huge issue last spring and summer on the weekends.