(Los Angeles) A ​​lake that has been dry for nearly 80 years is set to reappear in California where weeks of torrential rains threaten to overflow local dams and reservoirs.
The Sacramento Area Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) announced Monday operations to transfer water that accumulates with rainfall at Pine Flat Dam in the Central Valley of County of Fresno to the former dry site of Lake Tulare.
“River flow downstream of the dam will continue to increase,” Kings River association head Steve Haugen said in a statement.
“The Kings River has been in flood for the last two to three weeks from all the storms we’ve had,” Randy McFarland, a consultant for the management association, told local media.
“We haven’t had such a significant hydrological year since 1982 or 1983. This could be the largest ever recorded or observed in modern history,” he added.
California, particularly in the central and southern regions, is seeing up to 80mm of coastal precipitation on Tuesday and 120cm of snowfall in some places.
Evacuation orders have also been given in the county of Tulare where the old eponymous lake is located.
The US weather services also warned of the risk of flooding from southern California to San Francisco.
In the mountains, where the wind could blow with force, which could bring down power lines.
The western United States has been experiencing record snowfall and precipitation for weeks.
Recent storms in California are fed, like most others this season, by an “atmospheric river,” a gigantic corridor of rain that transports water vapor stored in the tropics, often around Hawaii.
While it is difficult to establish a direct link between these storms and climate change, scientists regularly explain that warming increases the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.
