Tuesday May 30, 2023
San Francisco Chronicle —
This year’s historic snowpack has meant epic amounts of water flowing through California’s rivers, streams and creeks.
“Everything’s high right now,” said Travis Hiett, field office chief for the United States Geological Survey’s Sacramento field office. “The San Joaquin’s super high. It’s been 10,000 (cubic feet per second) for, seems like months now — and that’s very rare.”
That’s more than the capacity of four standard 40-foot shipping containers rushing by each second.
Around 40% of the roughly 500 stream gauges across the state are running above normal, provisional data from the U.S. Geological Survey shows. A few dozen are registering record highs for this time of year, especially along the central and southern Sierra. With peak melt season expected in the coming weeks, this means plentiful amounts of water running into reservoirs, but also dangerously fast flows and the risk for potential flooding.