As yet no year without flood in Soomaa. There have been two floods already in this year. The first one arrived in February, and was in many ways exceptional. First of all, sank Soomaa by 2-3 days, as soon as the snow melted, and in addition it rained a lot. Secondly water went so high that was possible to paddle even in the woods. Usually, this can`t be done in winter. And the flood lasted enough long to get many foreign visitors here too.
Latvian guests with their kayaks at Soomaa flood in February 2016 (Photo: Mārtiņš Plūme)
First in history we desided to put name for flood and we named it „Liisi“. It is dedicated to journalist Liisi Seil, who often writes about Soomaa and issued with Elmo Riig book about Soomaa: „Journey through five seasons“.
Usually winter comes back and rivers freeze again after winter flood. This time it`s not happened, and so we’ve been canoeing throughout February and March. Sometimes happened to come a snow storm during trip.
Yesterday in #soomaa #rahvuspark (Photo: Katoivo/ Instagram)
In April, the flood came to us again, which is far below Liisi`s water level. Since the 90’s is fairly normal for the winter flood is higher than spring flood (see Figure 1).
The figure shows that the last three years have been relatively minor floods and next year we expect to meet some bigger flood again.
