Wednesday April 19, 2023
AccuWeather —
After the latest atmospheric river event contributed to the resurrection of a “ghost lake,” flooding nearby towns, residents in the path of snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada are waiting for the other shoe to drop.
The train of storms that slammed the West Coast over the winter into March filled parched reservoirs and revived the depleted snowpack. However, while the surplus of water provided an oasis amid a historic megadrought, snowmelt from the Sierra Nevadacould contribute to more long-lasting concerns for flood-prone towns.
Experts have pointed to the southern Sierra Nevada snowpack, which drains into the San Joaquin Valley, as a particular area of concern. Gauges have already started to show some runoff, but it’s just the start of what will likely play out as intense spring flooding, Jeffrey Mount, a senior fellow at the Water Policy Center at the Public Policy Institute of California, told AccuWeather National Reporter Bill Wadell.