The Kinneret Rises Five
21:12 Feb 07, '07 / 19 Shevat 5767
by Hillel Fendel
The winter rains continue to have their effect on the national water supply, hiking up the Kinneret by its biggest one-day jump this winter: five centimeters. The Mt. Hermon skiing site is open.
The Kinneret - the Sea of Galilee, Israel's largest freshwater reservoir and its standard of measure of the country's water supply - currently stands 3.1 meters (10.2 feet) lower than its optimal level. The level is measured at 211.9 meters below sea level - 1.1 meters above the red-line minimum level at which the government takes remedial measures.
The rains of the past few days are beginning to have an effect on the Kinneret, raising it eight centimeters in the past two days. Eighty centimeters of snow (31.5 inches) were added to the ski slopes of Mt. Hermon in the north.
The Kinneret has risen a total of a foot (30 centimeters) in the past six weeks.
The Kinneret, covering an area of 64 square miles between Tiberias and the Golan Heights, is, at its deepest, about 44 meters (144 feet) deep. Every ten centimeters of height in the Kineret, the nation’s primary source of drinking water, represent some 17 million cubic meters of water, or roughly 3.5 times Israel's national consumption.
The Kinneret is fed by a number of fresh water streams to its north, and also has salty springs at the lake bottom and along its shores.
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