After a snowy winter in California, flooding is now expected in the US west coast state. The climate researcher Daniel Swain wrote on Twitter yesterday that a strong water runoff from the mountainous regions is to be expected. Most of the water is still bound in the snow cover, but the melting will start quickly as temperatures rise.
In the Sierra Nevada in California, massive storms caused record precipitation this winter. In the middle and southern part of the mountain range, the highest snow cover has been measured in 90 years, the US weather agency (NOAA) announced in early April via its National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS), which examines precipitation with a view to drought forecasts.
Unusually heavy rainfall and the beginning of snowmelt have already flooded large areas in Tulare County in California’s Central Valley. The bed of the former Tulare Lake, which has dried up for decades and is now used for agriculture, is particularly affected. Authorities have diverted water from the Kings River to the region.
