Lake Tahoe has officially breached its natural rim for the first time since June 14th, 2015! NOAA is reporting that over 60 billion gallons of water have flowed into Lake Tahoe since December. The lake would still need to rise by 6 feet-another 242 billion gallons of water-to hit it’s Maximum capacity, but after four years of drought we will take it!
Message From NOAA:
“The Natural Resources and Conservation Service does a forecast of the rise on Lake Tahoe based on snow melt and evaporation, but the forecast assumes the gates are closed. Their latest forecast (in mid-March) had a range of around 0.7 feet of rise all the way to almost 2 feet of rise with the most probable forecast in the 1.3 foot range. Again, that is the rise with the gates closed. The operation of the gates is based on agreements that govern the Newlands Project and that is handled by the U.S. Watermaster’s Office in Reno.” – NOAA, April 5th, 2016
This is good news for Truckee River which has not seen appreciable water flowing from Lake Tahoe since October 2014.
