ParrotRob
Service Attendant
Waters don't flow across any divide. What gave you that idea?Let me try to explain another way. North America has three primary drainage basins - the arctic, pacific and atlantic. There is also The Great endorheic basin that drains nowhere but ignore that for now.Waters in the Atlantic basin stay there. They never cross a divide into another drainage basin, and they all end up in the Atlantic ocean.Now then, think about how they get there. Some of them go straight to the Atlantic ocean, but some go to the gulf of Mexico first, THEN to the Atlantic ocean. The Eastern Divide separates those two SUB basins into what you could call the Atlantic ocean basin and the gulf basin. No waters cross that divide either. They either go to the ocean or the gulf but not both.Now let's look at the gulf basin. It, in turn, can be even FURTHER subdivided. Water can enter the gulf through the Rio Grande, Mobile Bay, Tampa Bay, the Mississippi River, or lots of other rivers and bays that make up their own smaller drainage basins that are all part of the gulf basin.Drilling down one more level to the Mississippi basin - waters can enter the Mississippi river directly, or through the Ohio river, Missouri river, etc.Swadian Hardcore said:1334465852[/url]' post='360982']Well, I m extremly confused now. If rivers do flow across the Eastern Continental Divide, how can the waters on both sides flow in different directions? Do the river peak at the divide, with waters on either side flowing in different directions?
You see a lot of signs around here in the mid-Atlantic telling you what basin (or "watershed") you're in. Not uncommon to see signs telling you you're in the "Little Patuxent Watershed" - which is, itself, part of the Patuxent watershed, which is part of the Chesapeake bay watershed, which is part of the Atlantic basin.