and I'm a meteorologist here at
ABC10 in Northern California.
So this is a one way that we are
really trying to communicate all
the information for rain, for s,
for snowmelt reservoirs and just water
in general up and down Californ.
And if you're not familiar
with this lake behind me,
this is Lake Shasta.
This is really one of the
key ways that we capture.
And we hold on to water and we release
it slowly for people that use wr
for agriculture, for urban uses,
for all sorts of different custs
down the line, so to speak,
as well as fish in the river.
Salmon are in the Sacramento River and
they need water coming out of this lake.
Now this is really important
because a couple years ago,
back in 2021 in September,
it was way down near record lows and it was.
Quite honestly,
a shock to the system and really horrifying.
Well, since then we've had a
number of big years for us,
obviously this year and it's cop
155 feet, then you look at what's left.
There's about 30 feet left in this lake
before they're really going to e
to open up these spillways and p
it from going over the top of the dam.
So there's still some room left in Shasta,
but it has come up in a major
way and it is now 82% fold.
This is really important.
It's more than average when youe
a look at Orville, which is als.
A massive lake,
it's a little bit up from the
town from Orville,
somewhat near where Chico is.
That lake is at 82 capacity,
way above average.
And then you look at some of
the smaller lakes like Folsom.
Folsom is about 1/4 of the size
of an Orville or of a Shasta,
and right now it seems artificially low.
Well,
what's going on there is that some of these
lakes are in full flood protection mode.
In other words,
they're releasing water because
more water is coming in and thee
still getting ready for the big
long spring melt season.
So there's plenty of water that
should get most of these lakes,
if not all of them.
Very close to full by the time we get
to the peak reservoir storage season,
which is right in the middle of of summer,
but right around June to July.
So the whole system is functioning very well.
This is the San Francisco Bay.
If you're not familiar with
what we're looking at here,
this is the Bay Bridge from
Oakland going into San Francisc.
This is what we call Treasure Island.
There's the Golden Gate Bridge right there.
And when you start to see all
this muddy sediment in the wate,
that really tells you that the e
system of water starting off high going
through these lakes and reservo.
Into the big rivers like
the San Joaquin or the
Sacramento and then out to the ocean.
This is how it's supposed to lo.
This is a normal functioning process that
keeps the rivers healthy and just keeps
the whole system working as intended.
And then we get to the big
issues here across California,
one of which is the drought.
If you go back to September
of this rainy season,
because we have our rainy season
start from October until the end
of September the following year,
because that's usually how it g.
We were in a bad spot.
You never know how the season's going
to go until the storm start com.
And we got a lot of early storm.
We got many of them, many of them were cold.
And then look what happened to
the worst part of California,
drought wise, the San Joaquin Valley,
the bread basket of the world,
they have no drought whatsoeverd
in fact in that part of the sta.
Their issue is longterm flooding
because we still have major
snowpack in the southern Sierra,
almost three times compared to average,
and that's still yet to melt.
In fact,
they even got some more snow yesterday,
bringing mammoth now officially
above 700 inches at the bottom d
more than 800 inches at the top.
New record for them Palisades T,
which is near Tahoe,
Kirkwood which is nearby,
as well as at least South Lake
Tahoe getting very close to
700 inches and Dodge Ridge.
Is in the central Sierra.
Great ski area by the way,
family owned.
And what you need to know aboutm
is that this is the longest and
biggest season they've ever had.
They've been open since the
50s and they've started,
they opened up extremely early d
now they're going to be open lae
and they've got plenty of snow,
record levels of snow for them.
What's going to happen over the
next several days is that we're
going to get a drying out perio,
then we're going to get basically one
more decently sized storm and tn
we're going to start to dry out for a while.
So we are celebrating the
sunshine here in northern.
California.
You saw how much water we have d
how much is coming in so we can enjoy it.
Guilt free sunshine,
cool temperatures are going to e
kicking around here for a whiled
then we've got a dry weekend ah.
However, we're not completely d.
As I'm taping this on early Thursday morning,
we're looking at some light
lingering snow that's mostly
going to Southern California.
The issue here with this is that
it's just keeping things going.
A lot of people are just ready to move on,
get into a nice sunny weekend a,
but that spot in particular the
Sierra will be hit with some ong
snow showers into the afternoon.
And then we have something calln
inside slider which basically goes north
to South over land versus out oe
ocean and that keeps the snow g.
It's going to be light,
but keeps it going through the weekend.
This is what it look like in Southern
California as yet once again anr
day with rain and snow in the mountains,
places like Big Bear which
got some snow yesterday.
As far as our local forecast,
we call it the big mountain
backyard forecast.
We're going to be looking at his
in the 50s, so kind of a cool
day with a little bit of wind.
That's always sort of the tellte
sign when you go Northwest wind
that tells you that something's.
The pattern has essentially chad
and we're going to be watching
over the next several days as we
enjoying the sunshine locally.
Sports are going to be happening again.
We've got opening day for baseb.
The A's are going to be playing the Anaheim,
the Los Angeles Angels.
Excuse me, I grew up in Southern California,
so pardon my. Slip there.
But this is the deal folks.
We've got more snow coming and e
way that this comes is over lan.
We call this an inside slider.
So basically moves down and then starts
to sling snow on the east side of this year,
which does include the Tahoe Ba,
mammoth can get snow in situations like this.
We're looking at some light
continued snow once we get into
the tail end of the weekend.
Just so you know,
I showed you highs in the 50s.
We're supposed to be in the upper 60s
and we could be as warm as the s
around here this time in late M,
nowhere near anything like that.
We're slowly but surely going te
warming into the 60s and dry and then
we've got one storm Tuesday, Wednesday,
and then we're going to warm up,
maybe even into the 70s for next weekend.