California’s largest reservoir has raised its dam gates as water continues to swell following heavy rainfall in the state. A deluge of rainfall in the western U.S. has seen Shasta Lake rise by nearly 10 feet in the last week alone.
One reservoir in northern California rose by 5 feet after two atmospheric rivers supplemented the water levels. An atmospheric river began across much of the Pacific Northwest, including Oregon and Northern California, on Friday.
Lake Shasta, California’s largest reservoir, stands at 113% of the historical average and only 52 feet from being full, thanks to the gift of rain the state is receiving so far this winter.
California will escape much of the rainfall from an incoming atmospheric river, but the storm will still benefit some of the state’s reservoirs.
Thanks to a stormy winter and spring, Lake Shasta’s water level is almost a third higher than it usually is in mid-October.
The state’s largest reservoir at Shasta Dam, nine miles north of Redding, was 71% full on Monday, according to the California Department of Water Resources. That’s 130% of what the lake usually holds on that date, according to the state.
The last time Lake Oroville neared capacity was four years ago, and very quickly it plunged into drought territory and has seen low water levels until this winter. And now that billion-dollar, renovated spillway is back in use as the reservoir is back at 99% of its capacity.
The Feather River is getting a fair amount of extra water flow these days as Lake Oroville has been releasing water over the last week. Oroville is California’s second-largest reservoir, with a capacity of over 3.5 million acre-feet of water, and also just about at capacity is the state’s largest reservoir, Lake Shasta, which has a capacity of 4.5 million acre-feet and is at 98%.
California when it rains: water cooler talk.
Both Lake Oroville and Lake Shasta reported near-full capacity Monday with plenty of snow in the northern mountains anticipated to melt.
After a relatively dry February, the spigot has turned back on over the North State, thanks to a series of late-winter storms in March that have brought water levels up at Lake Shasta to almost 40 feet from its crest.
The lake — the state’s largest reservoir — has risen 8 feet over the past week and more than 100 feet since Dec. 1, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation numbers show.
After another week of severe winter weather, levels in California’s recovering water reservoirs have continued to rise, signaling good news for the state’s summer water supplies.
This follows weeks of considerable rain and snowfall in California since the start of 2023.
California may celebrate having double the expected snowpack after a string of atmospheric river storms, but state water experts warn that more needs to come to offset years of record-breaking drought.
At the season’s second monthly snowpack survey conducted Wednesday at Phillips Station — at the intersection of Highway 50 and Sierra-at-Tahoe Road — the California Department of Water Resources measured current snow depths and water content.
