An atmospheric river will drench California, with some parts still recovering from last year’s storms
As California braces for another powerful atmospheric river storm on Sunday, Tulare Lake continues to remind visitors of the powerful consequences these extreme storms can have.
As California braces for another powerful atmospheric river storm on Sunday, Tulare Lake continues to remind visitors of the powerful consequences these extreme storms can have.
Floodwaters in the lake, which formed after about a dozen atmospheric river storms hit California in 2023, are still stretching across thousands of acres of premier farmland more than nine months after the resurrection of the “ghost lake,” as some took to calling it.
This summer, the lake’s stagnant waters became a hotspot for wild birds and caused an outbreak of avian botulism that forced wildlife officials to patrol on airboats daily and collect hundreds of dead birds. Flooded vehicles and telecommunications equipment were submerged along the bottom of the lake bed, and farm operators couldn’t access their fields.
The lake’s continued presence in this corner of the Central Valley highlights how the environmental impacts of last year’s extreme rainfall are still reverberating across California. Storms this weekend could bring extreme precipitation to other parts of the state, but most flood impacts aren’t expected to linger as long.
Today, the Tulare Lake is shrinking rapidly, even amid recent rainfall. As of Thursday, water covered about 4,532 acres of farmland, according to Justin Caporusso, who handles public relations for Kings County, where the floodwaters settled. That means the lake is less than 1/20 of its peak size last year, and life is approaching normal for those living nearby.
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