_March 10,2023-

 

Kaweah ,Kern ,Tule and Kings Rivers flood onto Valley floor

 

Pictured top is the Kaweh River spreading onto the Valley floor below the dam

The second photo is along the Kern River

 

Giant Forest gains 12 inches of of precip

Giant Forest in Sequoia National Park gained an impressive 12 inches of precip in 24 hours in today’s vigorous and warm storm according to the state DWR website.

 

 

 

Snow Lab heading for record snowpack?

Tahoe’s Central Sierra Snow Lab posted this graph before the latest storm.It showed this year as  the 5th  snowiest year.Add to that 9.3″ of rain-soaked #snow at today’s 8am measurement says  their website.’We have plenty more rain and snow on the way with additional precipitation amounts of 7-10″ predicted through Wednesday.” That would  put it ahead of 1982 with enough time to reach number one later this year.

 

FRIANT DAM VACATED TO HANDLE MELTING SNOWPACK

From mid-January to early March, the Bureau of Reclamation vacated about 200,000AF from Millerton Lake (Friant Dam) to make room for runoff(see chart). Good thing they did with an anticipated 200,000 AF coming down from the upper SJR watershed much sooner than expected due to the warm AR. The dam can hold 550,000AF but was holding 237,000AF March 8. Today the dam is holding 271,000AF -an increase of 35,000AF in two days(recorded at 6 PM/March 10)

Here is what Friant Water Users wrote earlier on March 10 about the next few days.

“Long range forecasts are indicating the atmospheric river system currently located in Central California will last three to four days and bring significant precipitation (as much as 10% more than the January storm) and high freezing levels, which will result in increased early runoff.”

 

 Tule River flooding today