Twisty history

Has a tornado ever crossed Lake Carroll? No — and yes. On April 18, 1955, 17 years before Lake Carroll was established, an EF-2 tornado cut a straight path across Carroll County, entering around what would become Hidden Valley Drive and running alongside Payne Road before it petered out in an area north of Shannon.

Snow, rain, floods

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As for rain, too much of it can increase runoff going into watersheds, such as the ones from the east and south that enter Lake Carroll and then flow into the Plum and Mississippi rivers. Lakes don’t tend to flood like rivers and streams do because they are wider. Since water level records were first kept in 1993 by Lake Carroll management, the lake has fluctuated about 14 feet between its highest and lowest points. The lowest recorded height was 731.6 feet in November 1993, and the highest was at 745.5 feet on July 24, 2010, after about 14 inches of rain fell over that weekend. The lake’s pool level is 740 feet; when levels reach higher than that, lake water will spills over through the Leroy Hinkle Dam and into the creek. While flooding is rare at the lake, it has affected several places around it in recent memory, to its east, north and west: The Yellow Creek that runs through Pearl City and Freeport, the Pecatonica River in Freeport and Martintown, Wisconsin, and the Mississippi River have all pushed past their banks, with the Mighty Mississippi’s floods reaching historic levels through the years. After heavy rains in 2010, flooding from the Plum River, which water from Lake Carroll feeds into, caused significant damage in southern Savanna.

Guentner

Landscaping and Lawn Care

This ominous looking storm front moved through the Sauk Valley on March 31, bringing heavy rains, strong winds and hail — and if you were traveling on state Route 72, east of Shannon, you saw just how rough things got. This machine shed roof, from the Gempeler Farm less than a mile east of the Carroll-Ogle county line, took a 500-foot ride and ended up by the side of the road. Nearby, a piece of the shed was wrapped around a utility pole.

EARLEEN HINTON/EHINTON@SHAWMEDIA.COM

Stan Kosmecki of Mount Carroll watches the Mississippi River as it rises April 30, flooding streets just west of Main Street in downtown Savanna. The two trees on the left indicate where the river’s bank is normally.

This year, sandbags in Savanna were out in full force not because of the Plum River, but rather the much larger Mississippi, due to record snows up north. At the western tip of Lake Superior, Duluth, Minnesota, broke its record for the most snow in a season, with 138.3 inches, according to the National Weather Service, up from its previous high of 135.4 during the 1995-96 winter season. Snow melt from that area runs south into watersheds that drain into the Mississippi River, which also takes on many more streams from Minnesota and Wisconsin, which also saw more runoff from snow melt. The result: flooding to south along the river.

The National Weather Service monitoring station for the river in Bellevue, Iowa, across from river from near Hanover, documented a crest of 21.9 feet on April 30. The mark, unofficially, is the third-highest figure at that point — about a half-foot more than the historic flood of 1993, but still a foot-and-a-half short of the historic 1965 flood. The river continued to be problematic downstream, topping over state Route 84 near Albany in Whiteside County, and closing riverfront streets in Davenport, Iowa.

Weather watching

The National Weather Service, which issues weather warnings and advisories, has regional bureaus that monitor weather in specific areas. Carroll County is served by the NWS bureau in Davenport (referred to as The National Weather Service in the Quad Cities). Illinois counties to the east, including Lee, Ogle and the Chicago area, are served by the bureau in Romeoville (referred to as The National Weather Service in Chicago). With technology that can predict and pinpoint severe weather, there are more tools available than ever before to keep people safe and weather watchers happy. TV meteorologists can track weather events, interpret radar data, and warn people to take shelter before a storm strikes; smartphone apps can send out alerts as they’re issued; and social media sites provide updates (find “US National Weather Service Quad Cities Iowa/Illinois” or “US National Weather Service Chicago Illinois” on Facebook or NWS Quad Cities and NWS Chicago on Twitter). People can also keep tabs on the National Weather Service bureaus at weather.gov/dvn in Davenport, and weather.gov/lot in Romeoville.

Since weather activity in Lake Carroll typically comes from the west, keeping a watch west of the Quad Cities can also help, which can be found through the NWS bureau in Des Moines, Iowa (weather.gov/dmx).

In addition to weather monitoring, each NWS bureau also serves as a library of information for past weather activities, tracked by both its office staff and trained weather spotters. Spotters closest to Lake Carroll are at the Mount Carroll Water Department, which has documented local weather information at around 8 a.m. each day since 1897, making it one of the oldest spotter sources in the state. Information from Mount Carroll is the best indicator of what weather has been like in the lake community’s 51 years.

Unforgettable weather

Looking back at that information, one recent entry stands out as one for the record books. During a polar vortex on Jan. 31, 2019, the mercury plunged to 38 degrees below zero in Mount Carroll, establishing a new record as the lowest recorded temperature in the state, a teeth-chattering honor previously held by Congerville, a small town near Peoria, which recorded a temperature of 36 degrees below zero in 1999.

Other notable weather events in the area during Lake Carroll’s time include the Blizzard of 1979 and the Aug. 10, 2020, derecho.

During the blizzard, the Mount Carroll spotter station recorded a peak snowpack height of 33 inches on Feb. 12 and 13. The previous snowpack record was 32 inches, from Feb. 17-22, 1936.

The highest wind gusts to blow through the Lake Carroll area occurred during the 2020 derecho; a peak gust of 100.118 miles per hour was estimated in Forreston on that day. That event also produced a small tornado that traveled northeast from Florence to Freeport in Stephenson County.

Other notable records from Mount Carroll include a high of 108 degrees on July 12, 1936, just under 7 inches of rain on June 4, 2002, and 12.5 inches of snow on Feb. 10, 1960.

As for that “s-word,” has the weather ever flaked out in May? Yes, at least twice in Mount Carroll, with traces recorded on May 1, 1907, and May 4, 1954. How about in the fall? The earliest recorded snow was a trace on Oct. 14, 1999, with an October peak of 4 inches recorded on both Oct. 27, 1925, and Oct. 31, 2019.

The National Weather Service has regional bureaus at the Quad Cities in Davenport, Iowa; and in the Chicago metro area in Romeoville. Another is located west of the Quad Cities in Des Moines, Iowa.

Davenport: weather.gov/dvn

Romeoville: weather.gov/lot

Des Moines: weather.gov/dmx he walls don’t have ears at Lake Carroll’s fish hatchery, but they do have eyes, and some students from West Carroll Middle School learned more about those walleyes last month during a field trip to the hatchery.

History: Go to weather.gov/wrh/ climate?wfo=dvn to search weather history in Mount Carroll dating back to 1897.

The hatchery hosted a group of students April 19 who got to learn a little about the birds and bees — and the fish — at the facility that helps brings walleye into the world, and then the lake. Hatchery volunteers hosted open houses throughout the week for students from area schools.

Bill Klostermann talks to West Carroll Middle School students about the boat used to deliver the walleye to different parts of the lake during the open house. Many fish thrive in Lake Carroll, except walleye, which need a helping hand from the hatchery.

Joe Esposito talks to students from West Carroll Middle School while gesturing toward jars of walleye eggs April 19. After harvesting and fertilizing the eggs, volunteers wait for the tiny fish to grow a bit before releasing them into a holding pond.

Lake Carroll Fish Hatchery volunteer Len Masella talks to students about the process of netting grown walleye. The hatchery grows walleye exclusively for lake fishing.

The hatchery, one of the few in the state that’s privately owned, keeps the lake stocked with fish. Lake Carroll’s Fishing Club maintains the hatchery and the gear that keeps it running, and for 6 weeks out of the year the hatchery is teeming with life as members keep their eye on millions of eggs vying to see the light of day.

Once ice thaws on the lake, usually by early April, club members start gathering up as many walleye as they can to harvest their eggs, as many as 25,000 from one fish. How do you harvest fish eggs? With a squeeze, kinda like a tube of toothpaste. Once they’ve got the eggs, they’re placed in a steel bowl and fertilized (courtesy of the male walleyes’ contribution to the cause). The next step on their journey back into the water is into a bin for a few hours, then into a large tube. About 2 weeks later, they begin to hatch and the small fry — no, that’s not a nickname; newly hatched fish are called fry — wiggle in to the world. The fry are then placed into another tub for about 4 days before being placed in a nearby holding pond where they’ll become strong enough to survive in the lake. After a few months, the pond is drained through a valve where the fish are netted and transported to the lake. The survival rate for the eggs is less than 1 percent, so of the nearly 25,000 eggs laid by one fish, less than 250 usually make it through the hatching process.