Lake Conroe status?

Conroe is not currently releasing. Lake Houston has been releasing for a couple of days but has recently slowed the amount and now down about a foot.

Boonie : Good to know and thanks.

Fireba11 : Yea, me too. My take is that Conroe will not release until it is a necessity because they do not want to **** off the locals.
Coastalwaterauthority. Org shows lake Houston levels and discharge.
Sjra.net shows Conroe.

Boonie : especially right before the Memorial Day holiday. $$$

Boonie :
The SJ River west fork went down a lot when Lake Houston was releasing water. I hope they do release if Lake Conroe does the same. Then we should be ok.

Orangeapple : I'm no expert on this but for personal reasons watch it all pretty closely. Yes the river would be down if Houston is releasing and Conroe is not IF rainfall or other tributaries are not filling the river back up. Problems occur when Conroe has to release, which always seems last minute, and Houston cannot keep up due to several factors: slower release capacity; sediment build up; 1960 bridge which is basically a dam; excessive runoff from new development among others. All can do is be hopeful the powers to be make the right call on how much needs to be pre-released from Houston.

Boonie :
I moved here a few years back. In May 2024 there was a voluntary evacuation at SJ River west bank (where the restaurants are) which really freaked me out. I didn't have anywhere to go so just took walks to monitor the river and prayed. I just don't want that again. I think it was Lake Conroe releasing when Lake Houston didn't.

I don't remember if it was last year or the year before, we were predicted to have catastrophic flooding and then didn't. Everyone was saying the media just hyped it up. In reality, the reason that we didn't have flooding was because someone used their influence on Abbott who basically forced Conroe to release. I believe that during hurricane season, they have to when flooding is predicted, but outside of that, we are at their mercy. This information was not in the news but from a trusted source close to the water board.

Orangeapple : It's not much fun having to monitor the rivers and lakes when we have heavy rain events so understand your angst. I don't recall what years after Harvey but the river and lake got very high a couple of times. Orangeapple : Yes it's not fun watching the river and lake gauges and trying to anticipate how far up the water will come. From my recollections lake Houston has always opened their gates prior to Conroe. Hopefully some of the dredging will help relieve some of the west fork flooding but I expect the combination of sand mine and other sediment runoff has negated some of that.

Orangeapple :
This is probably old new to some, but Lake Conroe has the capacity to release 15x more water than Lake Houston. The project to increase Lake Houston's capacity most likely won't be be finished until 2027. Furthermore, the temporary orders to mitigate flooding downstream from Conroe expired in 2024. There was supposed to be a vote to extend the orders; but as far as I can tell, that didn't happen.

Maybe the ai data centers can figure a way to use the excess water to prevent all flooding.

Orangeapple :
with very little rain today, and not much in our area until after 4 or 5pm tomorrow, looks like things will be ok. I hope so!