Question: Sounds like our lakes are filling up. Back after the drought they looked pretty good but the basic water table was still low and this was bad news long term. How does the water table level look currently, compared to prior 5 years or so? Is the level reported anywhere regularly? Thanks for your help on this and your answering questions from others.

Answer: As you mentioned, lakes have responded sharply to the increased precipitation we've seen recently. Shallow groundwater likewise can respond rather quickly, and that is the general pattern that shows up in a surficial monitoring well near Grantham in western Wayne County. That well has run 1-2 feet above the long-term median for the past couple of months, while a glance at the graph from 5 years ago shows that it was very close to normal at that time. A deeper, regolith well for monitoring longer-term groundwater in Chapel Hill was about a foot above the median level 5 years back, then spent a good part of 2006 and 2008 over 2 feet below the median, and held at a foot or so below the median through much of last year. It has, however, trended upward through late December and January, and as of early February 2010 is very close to the median level for this time of year. There are excellent online resources for checking groundwater observations at nc.water.usgs.gov/drought/droughtgw.html and www.ncwater.org/Data_and_Modeling/Ground_Water_Databases/Drought_Indicator_Wells/.