Topic starter
26/10/2011 10:01 pm
I am currently writing about the 1937 Flood in Boone County, Kentucky. I have seen estimates of current speed as high as 15 miles per hour. I do know from my steam launch piloting and reading as well as reasoning, that it varies not only with the stage of the river, but varies with where you are in that river as in bends with their sometimes eddy currents, and how close you are to a dam (above it and below it)...which side of the river you are on etc. I'd like to hear from some of you guys who deal with it every day what you think it might have been up here in 1937 on the Ohio River with 79.99 feet on the Cincinnati gauge. I have been unable to get that or flow information from the US Corps. of Engineers. They must have that information somewhere in order to design the flood protection systems they built. In my experience, up here, a current of a little less than 1 mph to 2 mph in pool during the summer is normal. But in flood time, all I know is that it is easy for a reporter (or me) to estimate incorrectly. Cap'n Walnut.
26/10/2011 10:11 pm
Cap'n Walnut, I would say Alan is the man to ask about this. However, I will weigh in with my opinion, such as it is. I would say the current could have easily been 15 mph, certainly in spots. You already mentioned the differences in locations, and that certainly has a bearing on it. Also keep in mind that in 1937 there were few if any dams on tributaries to regulate the flows. The navigation dams on the Ohio main stem were of no effect in that flood.
You are right about 1 to 2 mph at summer pool, and it's even less than that in most places nowadays. So, 15 mph in a major flood is very possible.
27/10/2011 9:55 am
There is a source for flow rate info on the internet at:
National Weather Service - Ohio River Flows & Velocities
I don't really watch that web page much, but I've noticed that even in floods, the velocity they report never gets above 6 MPH. The highest for the Ohio that I've seen on this chart is probably 5.7 MPH at Cincinnati. I don't know how they measure the MPH's, but my guess is it's estimated from the volume discharge readings at the dams. I'd bet the flow is more than 6 MPH for a good distance right below the dams, in flood.
Topic starter
27/10/2011 3:14 pm
Bob, Steve: Thanks for your response...two whose opinions I respect. On January 31, 1937, the river was running out from a crest of 80 feet on the Cincinnati Gauge and was down to 76 feet and dropping. As mentioned, only the low-level dams were extant in 1937 and the wickets would have been down (open river) during the flood. A young man, 21 years old in a small john boat...looks like a pram in the photo...was overhauled by the Coast Guard at the Southern Bridge (mile 472) to "save him". He said he did not want to be saved, that he had started in Maysville at 7 that morning and was on his way to visit relatives in Madison! I figure he had traveled 63 river miles in nine hours and that amounted to an AVERAGE of a bit over seven miles per hour without stroking his oars except to steer. Now, two things here: the flood crest had already passed, and the calculation results in an average...not any instantaneous value. So, I can see that under localized conditions, 15 mph could obtain, the average is something less. Although steamboat traffic had long since been suspended due to the high water (bridge clearance), it seems to me it would have taken a powerful towboat to breast the tide with any loads to speak of. During one recent Tall Stacks (October 6,2006) I ran my steamer, MISSIE up river under the Big Mac bridge at Cincy. Running between the Kentucky pier and shore, I throttled back until I was making NO headway at all. My speedometer read 3.6 mph and the river had risen four feet during the night. My speedo was one for a bike rigged to read off the propeller shaft and was pretty accurate when checked at 5.2 mph with a GPS but this was NOT a GPS reading and how linear the readings were at 3.6 I do not know. Steve, the weather service graph only goes to about forty feet under present conditions and they do show the flows for all those elevations but I do not know how to find the higher readings. Cap'n Walnut
27/10/2011 4:02 pm
15 mph is almost a waterfall. Maybe it did that in some narrow chutes where the water had nowhere to go. In a flood, as the water spreads out into the countryside, currents should lessen as well as the rate of rise. But we are talking about 1937. And then there are the brave steamboaters who risked it all going into flooded fields and villages to rescue people. Yes, Alan would be a good first hand account on that.
27/10/2011 5:21 pm
A man I knew worked at the Riverside Plant (2nd & River Rd.) during the 37 flood and he said at the crest of the flood there was little to no current in the main river. They would row out from the plant and retreive "treasures" as they floated by. But he said he would row home which was on Bank St. and the current in town was terrific.
The fastest current I recall was when the ice broke in the winter of 77/78 and I tracked a barge which was floating upright...the stern was sunk and the bow was pointed straight up... along Riverside Dr. in Jeff in my car and the speedometer was showing 12 MPH!