The winter was so wet in California that it helped stop a record drought for several years. But some towns are now threatened by water like in Tulare, where a vanished lake has resurfaced.
The winter of 2022/2023 is causing unexpected damage in the United States. California had been suffocating under drought and gigantic forest fires for several years. Now the state is facing torrential rains and melting ice.
It took less than 3 months for a series of torrential rains to recreate Lake Tulare, between Los Angeles and San Francisco. His last reappearance was in the winter of 1982-1983. But in the face of relentless winter storms, the region’s canals were overwhelmed and levees were breached.
More than 1,200 farms in Tulare County have their feet in the water. The damage cannot be fully estimated as the water in the lake could take more than 2 years to dry up now. Especially since the Sierra Nevada mountains are still very snowy. Their melting will send large amounts of water to Lake Tulare. The California Department of Water Resources estimates that this amount of water will be more than the rains that brought the lake back to life.
More than 15,000 residents have had to flee the submerged region
Right in the middle of California, the city of Corcoran is renowned for its very important intensive agriculture to supply the state with tomatoes, pistachios and almonds. Farmland has been farmed for over a century on the remnants of Lake Tulare. Once one of the largest freshwater reserves in the West, this reservoir has disappeared following years of intensive irrigation.
Farmers have had to abandon large parts of their land, so the 2023 harvest is aborted in this area. But these operators fear that the local treatment plant will also be submerged by the waves. In this case, agricultural land would be contaminated and unsuitable for cultivation.