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Glory Hole Watch 2025 (2/8/25)


The Lake Berryessa water level has started to stabilize at 442.6 feet, 2.6 feet above Glory Hole. Now the question is how high the lake level will get due to future storms.

The latest report from the Solano Irrigation District has begun to include the spill through Glory Hole. They have also increased the release of water from the dam through all of the normal outlets.

Most people are used to hearing that the lake spills at 440 feet, but it actually starts to spill 1 cubic foot per second (CFS) at a level of 439.95; 2 CFS at a level of 439.96, and 10 CFS at a level of 440 feet. There are no direct measuring devices to determine the Glory Hole spill volume.

These calculated spill volumes are listed in a Spillway Discharge Table for Monticello Dam computed in 1963 before the introduction of digital computers and electronic calculators. Attached is a photo of the personal computer I used in college.

Engineers needed to solve simple equations like this one to calculate the Spillway Discharge Table. The water flow over a spillway when neglecting viscosity is given by the attached equation where w is the width of the spillway, g is the acceleration due to gravity, and y is the height of the water above the spillway. This is derived by using Bernoulli's equation and Torricelli's equation, and taking into account the flow over an area rather than just a point.

Attached is a scan of the first page of the Spillway Discharge Table still in use. It calculates the flow through Glory Hole in cubic feet per second at every hundredth of foot lake level after the lake level reaches 439.95 feet.

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Glory Hole Watch 2025 (2/7/25 - 6 AM)

 At 3:30 AM this morning, the Lake Berryessa level hit 442.3 feet, 2.3 feet above Glory Hole and still rising.


And once again the lake's world famous Glory Hole has sparked global interest. Below is an article just published in one of The Lake Berryessa News' major competitors, The New York Times. It's gratifying to be referenced in such an esteemed news outlet. Since you can't actually read the article without a subscription, I've included a slightly edited version below for your convenience.

Days of Heavy Rain Turns California Lake Into a Quirky Tourist Spot
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/weather/lake-berryessa-spillover-california.html
For the first time in six years, water is gushing through a unique spillway in Lake Berryessa, just north of San Francisco.
By Amy Graff, Feb. 6, 2025


Back-to-back atmospheric rivers have dumped buckets of rain across Northern California, filling its rivers to the brim and beyond. The Russian River spilled over its banks in Sonoma County, and in the far reaches of the state, Lake Shasta, a key marker of the state’s overall water levels, has nearly filled up.
And just east of Napa Valley, a rare not-fully-natural phenomenon was observed for the first time since 2019: Water began gushing, furiously, through a spillway in Lake Berryessa. The eye-catching event has happened only three other times in the past 20 years, and it has drawn curiosity seekers to the man-made reservoir, 70 miles northeast of San Francisco.

“People were taking pictures and videos and just standing in awe,” said Peter Kilkus, the editor of the Lake Berryessa News, who was there Wednesday morning with about two dozen other people.

 
The 72-foot-wide spillway, called a morning glory because its shape mimics the flower, is a unique funnel-shaped cement pipe that sits within the reservoir. (Locals call it the glory hole.) The mechanism is a type of drainage system with water pouring down the pipe and into Putah Creek on the other side of Monticello Dam. The spillway is among a few with that shape in the country; there’s also one at Pleasant Hill Lake in Perrysville, Ohio.

Chris Lee, general manager of the Solano County Water Agency, also made the trip to take a look. “It’s mesmerizing to watch,” he said. “It’s not something you can see in very many places in the world.” The water doesn’t get too high all that often. In recent history, the spillway was activated in 2019, 2017 and 2006.

Last year, the lake level was about a quarter of an inch from the hole spilling over — “as close to going without going,” said Jay Cuetara, the supervising water resources engineer for the Solano County Water Agency. The lake is also a popular spot for recreation, and boaters zip across the waters in summer, but the spillway may be the lake’s best-known feature. People flocked to the area six years ago when the water last spilled, too.

Mr. Cuetara gets the attraction. “There’s really nothing like it,” he said. “It’s a very odd-looking spillway that just disappears into the void. You almost have to see it.” For those who do want to see it, Mr. Cuetara said he expects the spillway to continue to be active through the weekend and likely for another week or two.

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Rhonda's Roadhouse Report, 1/25/25

 
Rhonda's Roadhouse has a new Facebook page at:
 
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61571831984325.
 
You can post comments, make suggestions, and share the page with your friends. I'm sure they would appreciate your comments and suggestions. Check it out.
 
Rhonda and her team are local to the area and have deep roots in the region. They decided to open Rhonda’s Roadhouse to create a community-focused space at Lake Berryessa. While winter is slower, they see it as an opportunity to test their operations and build a foundation for when traffic picks up in the warmer months. Their goal is to create a place where locals and visitors alike feel welcome, and they're committed to continuing to improve. They are working on plans to make the great outdoor space set up for live music and potentially Bocce ball.
 
The Roadhouse family were victims of the 2020 fires, but have since made the decision to rebuild their home here in Spanish Flat. With deep roots in the restaurant industry - both owners operated their own restaurants for many years - they saw an opportunity to help revitalize their community by purchasing a local restaurant. Their goal is not only to serve their neighbors but also to become a central hub for the Lake Berryessa area.

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Most people in developed countries are on a continuous battle to lose weight the hard way, diet control and exercise. Some just want to do it the easy way, stick a needle in their stomach on a regular basis,
https://youtu.be/WLFvTg11kdQ?si=0cgSHJJ3-XIFPJMV

But if you're counting calories, what does that actually mean?

How Are Calories in Foods Measured?

Food labels contain the number of calories per serving. But how is this number determined? The answer is surprisingly simple: The food is burned. A sample of the food is placed in an insulated, oxygen-filled chamber that is surrounded by water. This chamber is called a bomb calorimeter. The sample is burned completely. The heat from the burning increases the temperature of the water, which is measured, and which indicates the number of calories in the food. For example, if water temperature increases by 20 degrees, the food contains 20 calories. This method of measuring calories is called direct calorimetry. This method is not frequently used today.

The Calorie you see on a food package is actually a kilocalorie, or 1,000 calories. A Calorie (kcal) is the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram of water 1 degree Celsius. So, the Calorie on a food package is 1,000 times larger than the calorie used in chemistry and physics.

The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990 (NLEA) currently dictates what information is presented on food labels. The NLEA requires that the Calorie level placed on a packaged food be calculated from food components. According to the National Data Lab (NDL), most of the calorie values in the USDA and industry food tables are based on an indirect calorie estimation made using the so-called Atwater system. In this system, calories are not determined directly by burning the foods. Instead, the total caloric value is calculated by adding up the calories provided by the energy-containing nutrients: protein, carbohydrate, fat and alcohol. Because carbohydrates contain some fiber that is not digested and utilized by the body, the fiber component is usually subtracted from the total carbohydrate before calculating the calories.

The Atwater system uses the average values of 4 Kcal/g for protein, 4 Kcal/g for carbohydrate, and 9 Kcal/g for fat. Alcohol is calculated at 7 Kcal/g. (These numbers were originally determined by burning and then averaging.) Thus, the label on an energy bar that contains 10 g of protein, 20 g of carbohydrate and 9 g of fat would read 201 kcals or Calories. A complete discussion of this subject and the calories contained in more than 6,000 foods may be found on the National Data Lab web site at http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/. At this site you can also download the food database to a handheld computer. Another online tool that allows the user to total the calorie content of several foods is the Nutrition Analysis Tool at http://www.nat.uiuc.edu.

When too few calories are consumed for the body’s needs, the body begins to use carbohydrates stored in the liver and muscle. Because the body mobilizes stored carbohydrates quickly and because water is usually excreted as carbohydrates are mobilized, weight loss tends to be fast initially. However, the small amount of stored carbohydrates provides energy for only a short time. Next, the body uses stored fat. Because fat contains more energy per pound, weight loss is slower as the body uses fat for energy. However, the amount of fat stored is much larger and can, in most people, provide energy for a long time.

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Lake Berryessa Golden Mussel YouTube Video Updates

 Sweeney Sports

Decontamination Start-To-Finish: Golden Mussel Cleaning at Berryessa
 
https://youtu.be/umaOYCQJLBA?si=ANKMbTafk3jC1CXr
 
Lake Berryessa Quarantine Update - Interview with Solano Water District and Decontamination Process
 
https://youtu.be/6Er9qnizuAc?si=llgSdz9DgmoDt7ZT

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Free Book Chapters Available For Download


My sincere thanks to those of you who contributed to the future of the Lake Berryessa News. I challenge you to find any Lake Berryessa news anywhere. Hopefully, the many years of our intensive reporting about the latest Lake Berryessa issues will convince you of the truth of our motto, "Without The Lake Berryessa News there would be no Lake Berryessa news".

Here's a gift from The Lake Berryessa News to my readers - Free downloadable chapters from my books:


Lake Berryessa Technical Manual: The Science, Engineering, History, and Humor of a Major Unnatural Resource:

The Death of a Valley
Why Does Lake Berryessa Exist?
The Lake Berryessa Watershed
Rainfall and Lake Level History
How High Is Lake Berryessa?
How Deep is Lake Berryessa?
How Much Water Does Lake Berryessa Hold?
Mean Sea Level: Is There Such A Thing As Accurate Height?
Water In, Water Out, But From Where?
Does the WALROS Like Lake Berryessa?
Why is Lake Berryessa Not a Part of the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument?
East Side Story
Hiking and Wildlife Viewing
Are There Quail on Quail Ridge?
Why Does A Hiker Cross The Road? To Get To Stebbins Cold Canyon!
Private Houseboats - Yes; Private RVs & Trailers - No: Why?
Motorized Boats Banned From Big Island Lagoon! Why!
Archeologists Can't Dunk But Can Dig
What Can't You Do At Lake Berryessa?
Napa Opposes Building the Monticello Dam
Monticello Dam Construction
Raise Monticello Dam
Power Generation at Monticello Dam
Monticello Dam Failure Analysis
Predicting the Future & Glory Hole Drone Videos
As Lake Berryessa Turns!
The Ins and Outs & Ups and Downs of Lake Berryessa
Does Lake Berryessa Sweat in the Summer?
Glory Hole Introduction
How Does Glory Hole Work?
Glory Hole: Awesome, Frightening, But Dangerous?

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Conspiracy Theory or Automatic Pilot: The Economic Roots of Environmental & Societal Destruction

I.  Introduction
II.  Financial Principles For Fun And Profit
III.  Money: Is It Wealth Or Ilth?
IV.  The Financial System: Why Bad Things Happen To Good People
V.  Growth: Anatomy Of A Panacea
VI.  Corporations: Puppets To The Financial Markets
VII.  Globalization: Wanted – Two More (Phantom) Planets
VIII.  Environmental Economics And Sustainability (Finally)
IX. Any Solutions? (Always The Hardest Part)
Appendix: Sustainable Development Principles & Goals
References

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Lake Berryessa Technical Manual: The Science, Engineering, History, and Humor of a Major Unnatural Resource

 https://www.amazon.com/Lake-Berryessa-Technical-Manual-Engineering-ebook/dp/B0C21DZ9M9/ref=sr_1_3?

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Policy and Politics Betray the People: The Lake Berryessa Saga: 1958 - 2020
https://www.amazon.com/Policy-Politics-Betray-People-Berryessa-ebook/dp/B08MFSQDBR/ref=sr_1_1?
 
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Conspiracy Theory or Automatic Pilot: The Economic Roots of Environmental Destruction

 https://www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-Theory-Automatic-Pilot-Environmental/dp/1676368302/ref=sr_1_3?


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The KPIX Eye on the Bay interview below is one I did in 2010 and a relevant introduction to the substance of the book. 
I did it after Pensus had been given the contract for 5 resorts. As we all know Pensus was subsequently kicked out in 2012. 

https://youtu.be/nP9K8Ai0Lkc

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Lake Berryessa Data Sources

There are many sources of Lake Berryessa water and weather conditions available. The Solano County Water Agency site is good for real-time graphs of level, capacity, and water temperature. The California Data Exchange Center has data going back decades for level, capacity, capacity change, dam outflow, dam inflow, and rainfall. Anyone can research their own data and create custom charts. This is the source of many of the charts on the Lake Berryessa News website.

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An upgraded wildfire alert camera system will be keeping watch on Napa County day and night and notifying Cal Fire crews of potential fires. Twenty cameras will be part of a system that will use artificial intelligence and other technologies to identify fire and smoke. If they detect something, an alert will sound in the Cal Fire emergency command center near St. Helena.

Cal Fire has made a large investment into the ALERTCalifornia system, partnering with UC San Diego. There are 1,000 cameras across the state and Napa County is one of the test models.
Cameras can see 60 miles during the day, and this can increase to 120 miles on clear nights, with the changes in the air. The system can differentiate among smoke, clouds and dust. A link to this camera system and other relevant weather data is available on the Lake Berryessa News website at: http://www.rntl.net/lake-berryessa-cams/

This website was created by Doug Kunst. It is an amazing resource for Lake Berryessa fire cameras and weather. His business website is http://www.rntl.net/

Lake Berryessa Fire Alert Cameras

http://www.rntl.net/lake-berryessa-cams/


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 Real-Time Lake Level, Lake Capacity, Water Temperature
 
Solano County Water Agency
 
https://www.scwamonitoring.com/LakeBerryessa/
 
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Lake Detailed Historical Data
 
California Data Exchange Center
 
https://cdec.water.ca.gov/
 
Research historical data and create custom plots
 
Lake Berryessa Code: BER
 
https://cdec.water.ca.gov/dynamicapp/sensorplots?staid=ber&dur_code=D
 
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Local Weather Stations (Weather Underground Network)
 
Berryessa Highlands (Somewhere in the Berryessa Highlands)
Berryessa Highlands - KCANAPA20
https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KCANAPA20
 
Skiers Cove (Below the Berryessa Highlands)
Skier Cove - KCANAPA228
https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KCANAPA228
 
East Side Road (Across from Big Island)
East Side Road, Lake Berryessa - KCALAKEB2
https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KCALAKEB2
 
Spanish Flat (Near the Spanish Flat Recreation Area)
Roger - KCASPANI1
https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KCASPANI1