-March 15,2023-
Lake Success update:
Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux issued new evacuation orders and began visiting homes Wednesday along the Tule River in Porterville.
The order was announced just before midnight due to water levels rising in Success Lake to the point it was running over the spillway at Schafer Dam, the sheriff’s office said.
People were ordered to leave any structures on Tule River from Schafer Dam at Lake Success in Porterville to the east side of Road 284.
Boudreaux said in a video on social media deputies and firefighters would be going to about 100 homes in the area to notify people.
“We realize it’s late at night,” he said after midnight Wednesday. “Social media is not going to be the way to get to them.”
He said the waters were about eight hours from becoming unsafe for those in the area, which would be about 8 a.m. Wednesday.
Debris impacts flooding on Valley floor
Cotton Centert dairyman Tom Barcellos posts a video on Facebook near his dairy close to Cotton Center in Tulare County. The picture shows Barcellos’ heavy equipment removing logs and debris on a creek next to his farm. Debris is clogging stream beds forcing flood water to overflow channels and spreading destruction.
Giant Forest gets 76 inches rain
Take a look at a key weather station at 6500f in the Kaweah watershed mountains -famous Giant Forest in Sequoia National Park.
Here are rainfall numbers for that station for the past few weeks in the chart below.
Notice first that the weather station has gained about 26 inches of rain since late February now totaling nearly 80 inches for the water year -probably close to a record
Now notice the March 10 storm that caused the most havoc with heavy runoff in the region where Giant Forest was hit with about 15 inches from March 10 -12! Lots of that warm rain melted snow and came down the Kaweah River to help fill Terminus Dam this week.
Notice now that yesterday- in the second rain event – Giant Forest-received 6 inches – not as much as the previous storm.
The impact has been at least so far today (10:30AM) there is less runoff into the lake as we gear up for a well deserved break in this crazy weather for a few days.
