Credit: SF Gate – Photo: Top, Frances Low/DWR. Bottom, Walt Warneke
Record breaking precipitation has brought some much needed relief to many of California’s reservoirs. After enduring six years of drought, California is experiencing one of the rainiest seasons on record. A beneficiary of all this rainfall are the state’s water reservoirs.
California’s fifth largest reservoir, the San Luis Reservoir, shown in the photo above, provides storage to urban areas in southern California as well as farms in the San Joaquin Valley. During this year’s rainy season it has rebounded back to 79% capacity, up from a recent reading of 10% capacity last August.
“It’s looking like the State Water Project will probably fill our share in early February. There will still be a substantial amount of water needed from the federal government to fill, but I think there’s a chance they might fill their share by end of March. This will be the first time we’ve had a chance of filling since 2011.”
John Leahigh, water operations manager for the State Water Project speaking about the San Luis Reservoir
According to KQED Science, substantial gains have been made in both the Folsom Lake reservoir as well as California’s largest, Shasta Lake. Folsom Lake is the state’s 11th largest with a capacity of around one million acre- feet. Shasta Lake can hold 4.5 million acre-feet and is at 121% of historical for this date. The photos below illustrate just how much the rains have aided the drought stricken California reservoirs to date.
