Lake disappears overnight

Originally posted by woogleuk
I found a site which translated seems to suggest they drain it into the Rhine? Is that a river? Is that nearby?

www.economypoint.org...

EDIT: Aha! Eiswoog is a reservoir and does have a damn, there is your answer!

Eiswoog reservoir; at the far end the hotel on top of the Eiswoog dam can be seen; above the hotel, a section of the Eisbach Valley Viaduct is visible

en.wikipedia.org...

edit on 4/1/12 by woogleuk because: (no reason given)

I've quoted myself, In case you missed it, the above is the answers you seek, it is a reservoir, with a dam, that has either burst, or been drained into the Rhine. It is common for reservoirs to occasionally be drained.

Edit: sorry, I typed this while you gave your last reply, I thought you had missed my post.

reply to post by Anim8tr


Great find and very weird but im with Woogle on this - it would appear to have been drained. It is easy enough to find out if this is possible (if you can be bothered) - have a stroll around the perimeter of the lake and look for drainage pipes.

When full of water, it does indeed look like a pretty little lake.......

reply to post by woogleuk


Well thx for sending that link, would have never found it, its weird though that it doesnt say its a reservoir on the original german Eiswoog wiki. And that the restaurant that serves fish from the reservoir didn't know about it. Anyways I hope it was drained and not caused by some supervolcano event.

reply to post by woogleuk


Nice work! That certainly would ease my mind if I lived there. (at OP: There wasn't any steam coming up, right?)

reply to post by Anim8tr


No, don't worry, if you Google image search eiswoog, you will find other pictures from when it has been emptied.

Edit: It's looking fairly empty here, unless it's just the angle the photo was taken, I honestly don't know....

reply to post by Anim8tr


I honestly wouldn't worry about Laacher See exploding any time soon. The thing with average eruption times is just that - they are averages rather than specific times. It may not erupt for a million years or even ever again. Then again it may erupt badly several times in a small period, say a hundred years between each one. The thing is, when it is ready to go there will be plenty of warning signs for months in advance.

Back to the Lake, just a thought but is it maintained by the German Water Board? (or whichever company is responsible). If so, try looking on there website for further info. It is probably scheduled drainage but you never know, there may be an interesting reason for the draining!

On the second picture, you can see at the top part of the lake the water line that went down, apparently with a steady flow and some stopping while the lake emptied. You can see beige lines evenly spaced, going down.

OP, did you call your local authorities to know if it was something planned?

Also, it made me think of a big Russian lake that disappeared in 2005, and there was something also in 2008, etc.
There are a couples of threads about it on ATS.

Lake or river?
I smell something fishy here, no pun intended.
The "creek" has an established rut along the path of travel and the ground is not nearly saturated enough to have been recently drained or holding water in the near past.
We are not being told something here.
Nice try though.

reply to post by g146541


Owing to the high winds around Europe at the moment, it is actually distinctly possible for the wind to have "dried" the ground in no time at all, meaning lack of saturation marks is actually irrelevent. This is even more possible when considering the lake may have been drained quickly and over night - it certainly doesn't appear to be a large lake.

I say try the company responsible for maintenance.......

The answer has been posted. There is no mystery. Its an artificial lake. Its dammed and its only a couple of feet deep and telling by the underwater terrain you can see that this lake empties often.

Originally posted by g146541
Lake or river?
I smell something fishy here, no pun intended.
The "creek" has an established rut along the path of travel and the ground is not nearly saturated enough to have been recently drained or holding water in the near past.
We are not being told something here.
Nice try though.

Something fishy indeed. Am I the only one who thinks its strange that it is January 4, the op said " I went there for the first time a month ago with my girl, feed some ducks on a warm summer afternoon." December 4 is a warm summer month huh?

reply to post by Shadow Herder


Oh come on, that is far too simple!

Clearly it is the work of a giant thirsty alien willow tree that is marooned on earth!

reply to post by Anim8tr


This has happened at this pond before.

See Here

I believe its Damned so it would explain it.

reply to post by ludshed


Indeed I made a mistake there, I ment the last time I was there was a month ago, the first time I went was on a warm summer afternoon : )

EXIF data shows the photos were taken November 9th of 2010, if that helps any.

We have several man-made lakes here locally, and virtually every one is drained down to some extent in the winter, for a variety of reasons.

That the OP claims it 'happened overnight' and that even the folks at the hotel/restaurant don't have any idea sure reeks of BS to me..

It's not unheard of for a lake to disappear, there are several documented cases. Here's an article about one in Chile that initially baffled scientists, but eventually they discovered what happened:

How Can a Lake Simply Disappear?

And here's another page that describes a couple more cases:

Other Disappearing Lakes

This blurb from the above link sounds straight out of a disaster movie:

On November 21, 1980, an oil-drilling team had difficulty removing their drill that got stuck about 1,200 feet below the lake's surface. Suddenly the drilling crew heard loud noises and their platform began tilting. Fearing a total collapse of the oil rig, the workers abandoned the platform. The platform tipped over and, shockingly, disappeared completely under the water. A violent whirlpool quickly developed where the oil rig had been. Other drilling platforms and a dock were sucked in. The direction of the Delcambre Canal, which had flowed into the Gulf of Mexico, was reversed and 11 barges and a tugboat slipped into the whirlpool. Miners in the salt mines 1,500 feet below began to evacuate when water started rushing into the caverns.

There was another case here in the US that I'm having trouble locating a link to, it was in the news a couple of years ago. Basically it was a resort lake surrounded by expensive homes, one day it was at its normal level and the next day it was bone dry. I think the reason for that one was determined to be a sinkhole, and if I recall they were reporting that the lake would remain dry from that point onward, but the homeowners were demanding that someone come "fix" it, LOL!

reply to post by SavedOne


It's not a lake though, it's a reservoir, with a dam, and it occasionally gets drained. I have already found this out and posted relevant links.

They probably opened the gates due to the extreme weather.

reply to post by Anim8tr


My guess is it's gone in to water bottles sold worldwide.....or sucked out for China.

reply to post by Anim8tr


It seems to happen now and then???




www.msnbc.msn.com...

Originally posted by fiftyfifty
Very strange if true. Can anyone else verify that this is definitely Der Eiswoog? Do you have any additional photo's. Always skeptical

If you look at the wikipedia link you can clearly see the same restaurant building in front of the bridge. Wiki picture is a bit further away and slightly different angle but clearly the same building. For more proof, with the name of the restaurant perhaps we could find it online with more photos that tie it to this lake.