CADILLAC \u2014 In the days since the level of Lake Cadillac peaked on April 19, water has fallen about 3.6 inches, which averages to an agonizingly slow 1\/3- to 4\/10-of-an-inch per day.<\/p>\n
Wexford County Drain Commissioner Mike Solomon said Lake Cadillac as of Tuesday was 1292.25 feet above mean sea level, which is 2.25 feet higher than the court-ordered spring level established in 1967.<\/p>\n
Signs that lake levels are slowly coming down are visible in the Cadillac area, albeit subtle. They include the 3-inch gap under the concrete of the Clam River Dam. During peak levels, there was no gap. Another sign is water flowing freely under the Haynes Street bridge, which previously had river water backing up around it.<\/p>\n
Solomon said he\u2019s been somewhat surprised at the rate of decline, which he expected to be slower.<\/p>\n
A few hot, sunny days with decent wind increased the rate of water evaporation.<\/p>\n
Solomon said it\u2019s unlikely that any water from the lakes is being absorbed into the ground at the moment, considering how saturated it already is.<\/p>\n
The main route of water drainage from lakes Cadillac and Mitchell is through the Clam River Dam, which is a key limiter for how fast lake levels lower, along with the capacity of the Clam River.<\/p>\n
An assessment done by the engineering firm J.E. Tiffany and Associates found that the dam \u201crepresents the most significant hydraulic restriction.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom a quantitative standpoint, Lake Cadillac\/Mitchell experienced a rise of approximately 2.1 feet between April 1 and April 20, 2026,\u201d the firm wrote in a letter to Solomon.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaintaining the April 1 water level throughout this period would have required more than doubling the capacity of the existing dam and river system \u2014 an indication of the magnitude of the inflows experienced during this event and the limitations of the existing river system.\u201d<\/p>\n
The firm also found that a key hydraulic constraint is the backwater effect created by downstream conditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe capacity of the river is influenced not only by the dam, but also by channel geometry, slope and structures such as bridges and culverts,\u201d the firm found.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese downstream controls limit how much additional discharge can be conveyed from the lake. Even under a hypothetical scenario where the Chestnut Street culverts and the Clam River Dam were removed, discharge from Lake Cadillac\/Mitchell could be increased somewhat, but would still be limited by downstream restrictions, including channel characteristics and downstream structures.\u201d<\/p>\n
The dam has been open for almost six months and days before the area was hit by the heaviest rains, it was hand-cranked beyond the capacity of the motor to allow for maximum water flow.<\/p>\n
During the last major flooding event in 2008, it took six weeks for lake levels to come back down to 1,290 feet above mean sea level.<\/p>\n
While Solomon was reticent to make a precise prediction about when lake levels will lower to that point, he said it\u2019s important to keep in mind that water rose about a foot higher this month than it did in June 2008.<\/p>\n
April, May and June are among the wettest months of the year and each time it rains, it changes the drainage rate calculation. The rate of evaporation is another factor that is difficult to predict over the course of several weeks.<\/p>\n
Solomon said it\u2019s possible the lakes won\u2019t come all the way down to the spring level for two or three months. Substantial relief of flooding on roads, yards and in homes could come sooner than that but Solomon said putting a number on that could create unrealistic expectations because of how unpredictable the rate of drainage is from day to day.<\/p>\n
Accuweather long-range forecaster Paul Pastelok it\u2019s looking like there might be some good news on the horizon for the Cadillac area, as the region is expected to enter a relatively dry period over the next several weeks.<\/p>\n
Heavy rain systems are expected to remain largely south of Michigan for May and June, Pastelok said.<\/p>\n
There will be rain events in the coming days but Pastelok said they likely will be brief, dropping perhaps a quarter to half an inch of precipitation at a time, as opposed to downpours experienced earlier this month that produced 1 to 6 inches of rain at a time.<\/p>\n
Along with dryer conditions, Pastelok said the Cadillac area also looking to have some warmer days coming up, with the potential for strong winds, which will help to speed up the evaporation process.<\/p>\n
In the short term, Pastelok said Friday and Saturday could be very good drainage days in Cadillac. Both days are forecast to be mostly sunny with temperatures in the mid- to upper 40s.<\/p>\n
Lake levels since April 1 April 1 \u2014 1,290.43 April 7 \u2014 1,291.13 April 14 \u2014 1,291.57 April 15 \u2014 1,292.20 April 16 \u2014 1,292.33 April 17 \u2014 1,292.41 April 18 \u2014 1,292.51 April 19 \u2014 1,292.55 April 20 \u2014 1,292.53 April 21 \u2014 1,292.43 April 23 \u2014 1,292.38 April 24 \u2014 1,292.34 April 25 \u2014 1,292.32 April 26 \u2014 1,292.30 April 27 \u2014 1,292.25<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CADILLAC \u2014 In the days since the level of Lake Cadillac peaked on April 19, water has fallen…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":761897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[23],"tags":[32205,313176,746,8580,313177,313179,313178,313180,159,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-761896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-cadillac","tag-cadillacflooding2026","tag-environment","tag-flooding","tag-floodingcadillac2026","tag-lake-cadillac","tag-lake-cadillac-flooding","tag-nopaywall","tag-science","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=761896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/761897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=761896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=761896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=761896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}