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The drastic changes months of heavy rainfall have brought to a California reservoir have been captured in these before and after photos.
California's largest reservoir, Shasta Lake, reached nearly 100 percent capacity in May of this year.
The reservoir's water levels had been in a dire state since 2019 due to prolonged drought conditions in the state.
This is the first time the lake has reached this near-full level in four years, the NASA Earth Observatory reported.
Satellite images shared by the NASA Earth Observatory shows Shasta Lake from above on November 18, 2022—a time when the lake was seeing extremely low water levels—and then on May 29, 2023—after months of heavy rainfall and snowmelt.
A series of atmospheric rivers battered California from the end of December last year to early March. This not only drowned the state in rainfall, but built up record amounts of snowpack in the Sierra Nevada. Now the weather has warmed, the snowpack is melting, feeding into the state's rivers and lakes.
On November 18, 2022—before the wet season— the lake's water levels stood at 917.95 feet, which is only 31 percent of its full capacity. All throughout 2022, the lake had not been far above this level.
On May 29, 2023, however, the lake's water levels had risen dramatically to 1,063 feet, some 98 percent of its full capacity. It remained at this level during the beginning of June.
Shasta Lake had reached such low levels in previous years that a "bathtub ring" was clearly visible around its edges, signaling where the water used to be. Now, however, those rings have vanished.
The most recent image shows the lake full of water, while the older image shows the lake looking extremely dry.
The lake's water levels continued to rise steadily from the end of January 2023, where the lake stood at 56 percent of its full capacity.
California's second-largest reservoir, Lake Oroville, has also reached near capacity following the wet season. It is now 97 percent full, NASA reported.
Both of these reservoirs are integral for water storage and flood control in the state.
The wet season helped California's drought status as a whole.
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, the drought in the state has pretty much lifted, with only 4.63 percent of the state in a moderate drought, and 29.12 percent being abnormally dry.
Just three months ago, some 24.96 percent of the state was in a severe drought and 49.13 percent in a moderate drought.
However, experts fear that it would only take another severe dry season to plunge California back into a severe drought. As the state has been in a drought for so long, it would take years of above-average rainfall for it to be completely out of the woods.
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About the writer
Robyn White is a Newsweek Nature Reporter based in London, UK. Her focus is reporting on wildlife, science and the ... Read more
