Barton Springs Pool flow rate at 24 cubic feet per second.

[Steve Barnick]

Friends, and neighbors,

I let my engineering brain overwhelm me this morning...:)

What does that flow rate mean in real terms.

Well the median is 58 fps.
The recorded low was 13 fps (2009)
The recorded high was 124 fps (1992) Although I remember it being higher so
question that...

1 cubic foot = 7.480 519 480 5 gallon [US, liquid]

24 fps = 179.53 gallons per second

10,772 gallons per minute.

646,317 gallons per hour.

To put that in another perspective consider that the pool is a fixed volume. The
flow rate can then be used to calculate the rate of volume changes that occur
over time of the water in the pool. I do not know what the volume of the pool is but at the present flow
rate our volume change rate is a little more than twice as long as when it is at
the median of 58 fps and ~four times slower than when it is a 100 fps. And back
in 2009 when the flow rate was 13 it took ~twice as long as now.

Water is moving real slow in the pool so all the algae problems that we saw back
in 2006 have the potential to come back and I saw plenty of it yesterday. The
good news was this started in the spring of 2006 so we had a whole summer of
algae. We are in the fall of 2011 and the days will get shorter, temperature is
going to lower and we are going to get some rain!

Regards,
Steve

[Steve Barnick]

OOPS! Flow rate at 21 fps...you do the math...:)