Flooding in our Neighborhood

In case you aren't in this state, or if you are, but you've been living under a rock or something, allow to inform you: we're having a very different water year here in northern Utah--home of the eternal drought.

• Last fall was very rainy and the mountain ground was saturated just before the winter freeze.
  
• Then, December warmed up enough for my bulbs to pop out of the ground, but not warm enough to thaw the mountains.
• After that, things got cold and wet. And we've had TONS of snow and rain ever since. It's pretty strange.

The river by our house has been above flood-stage for the last few months or so. It's been running between 5 to 7 times the normal amount of water for spring runoff because of all the rain and snow.

A few weeks ago, after several days of rain, the river flooded up into our neighbors houses. We're on a little higher ground, but when the water started spilling across the road just down from our house, our toes began to tingle a bit. Luckily we didn't have any problems though.

But we're not in the clear yet. The reservoirs and rivers around here are all more than full, right? But, because of all the precipitation and low temperatures, we haven't even started the official spring runoff yet! The snow-pack in the mountains usually thaws through April as temperatures gradually warm up, but now we are into May, and temperatures are more likely to climb, fast. So the snow-pack will be coming down...fast. And due to the saturation levels from last fall, the mountain ground will likely not be able to absorb much.

Oh, and by the way, as you can see below, this year our snow-pack is something like 200% of normal!!!! So before this is over, we may find out if our little mobile home is actually mobile or not.

This is a kayak park right by our house. Apparently it's travel-worthy under
regular circumstances, but this year, it's really attracting attention.
I spoke with this kayak(er?) after he got out. He said he was just crazy with the adrenaline rush.
I look at these waves, and I'm inclined to think he's just plain crazy.
This is a brand-new storm drain right by our house. It keeps disappearing
entirely under the water.

This is the road just below our house where the water breached the bank. In the pic below, you can see where my boys and I have often sat to reflect upon the complexities of life and chuck rocks and crap into the water. There's usually about 15 feet of bank between the sidewalk and the river, but it looks like much of that has broken away at this point.


These next few pics are not mine, but they're all places near our house that we regularly walk or bike too. Obviously we haven't been able to do that much this year.
About half of the gigantic rail yard in Ogden is now a shallow lake.
At the height of the flooding, this bench could not be seen at all.
There was speculation that it had been swept away entirely.
The channel on the left is the actual river channel, the channel on the right is a dirt road. At the height of the flooding, there was another couple feet of water running over the dirt road.
A parking lot near the river foot/bike trail.

This is a 7' tall tunnel running under the road.
The actual river channel is about 15-20 feet away.
We're seeing tons of washed away banks these days. Our beloved river foot/bike path is in pretty bad shape. I hope it doesn't take to much to repair it all.

So we're all watching the weather intently at the moment. And while I'm grateful we haven't had the problems southern Utah has in recent years, here's hoping we have an orderly transition over the next month without much more drama.