Hydrology

Lookout Creek’s average discharge is the equivalent of a fully-loaded concrete truck rumbling down the river bed every 2.2 seconds!

Lookout Ck mean annual discharge - 121.83 cubic feet per second (cfs)

A standard concrete truck holds 10 cubic yards or 270 cubic feet (cf).

270 cf ÷ 121.83 cfs = 2.21 s

Concrete trucks appear to be 7.168 m long (google) and if you chained them, bumper to bumper with no space in between, the “train of concrete trucks” would be traveling 7.25 mph.

The largest snowpack recorded at the Andrews Forest was 4.4 meters (or 14 feet), at the Upper Lookout Meterological Station in 2008. The water storage in the snowpack on this date was equal to a depth of 1.56 meters (or 5 feet) of liquid water. Learn more about our climate measurements on our Research Programs page.

The amount of rain that falls at the Andrews Forest over a whole year is 7 feet (2.1 meters). That's 6 inches (15 centimeters) more than the height of LeBron James the basketball player!