Many here were awakened by a cell phone flash flood warning early this morning, if they weren’t already up and at ’em on the final day at Lake Dardanelle. As you can see from the accompanying U.S. Army Corps of Engineers chart, the Arkansas River has been on the rise since midnight, when it was 337.72 feet above sea level. At 6 a.m. it was up to 337.86.
A reminder: While that doesn’t sound like much – a rise of 0.14 – it’s significant to the fish, and signals a trend that will push them further away from the main river channel. In addition to the elevation change, in the third column of the chart, note the “Total Release” in the next to last column. It’s higher than it has been in the last two days – up to 170,155 cubic feet per second. In other words, the Arkansas River is rolling this morning.