11/18/2011 06:50

Although ongoing heavy rains have help slightly, Lake Kinneret still needs “major help.”
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Despite the ongoing rains that have soaked pedestrians for the past couple days, and that are expected to continue through Saturday, Lake Kinneret water levels have seen little improvement.

While the water level did not budge from Wednesday to Thursday – remaining at 213.675 meters below sea level, it had dropped half a centimeter the day before, Water Authority Spokesman Uri Schor told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday afternoon.

The rain thus far has occurred predominantly in the Center of the country, with only light showers hitting the North, he explained.

“We hope that the rains will continue until Saturday and that maybe something will budge up, but we’ll see,” Schor said. “The shortage is so strong in the past seven years and Lake Kinneret now is almost 68 centimeters under the bottom red line – that means we need lots and lots of rain in order to reach a normal point.”

During the summer, Schor explained, the Kinneret water level drops every single day, and it is still dropping, aside from a few sporadic days that the level breaks even – like Thursday, as well as one day last week.

“When the winter begins the ground needs to be full of water before the rain flows and reaches Lake Kinneret.

And only after that happens can the lake start to rise up,” Schor said.

Because the country has a “very serious lack of water” and the Water Authority does not expect the precipitation to continue into next week, Schor said he doubted that this week’s rains alone will have a significant impact on the water levels.

“If the rain won’t continue, it will go down again,” he said.

Schor added, “We do not need a little help; we need a major, huge help – now we got just a little help.”

http://www.jpost.com/Sci-Tech/Article.aspx?id=246056