Traffic on Interstate 5 passes over Shasta Lake on the Pit River Bridge. California’s years-long drought has dropped the water level, leaving a “bathtub ring” at the lake. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Shasta Lake at 38% capacity heading into the hottest months of the year
Jul 22, 2022 at 2:00pm
Shasta Lake, one of the state’s largest reservoirs, is currently at 38% capacity, a startling number heading into the hottest months of the year.
Shasta Lake is the reservoir of the federal Central Valley Project, the roughly 400-mile network of reservoirs and canals that pumps and ferries water largely to the San Joaquin Valley and portions of the San Francisco Bay Area. The reservoir is the driest it has been at this time of year since record-keeping first began in 1976.
California relies on storms and snowpack in the Sierra Nevada to fill its reservoirs. The state received a hopeful sign of a wet winter in late December when more than 17 feet of snow fell in the Sierra Nevada. But the winter storms abruptly ceased, ushering in the driest January, February and March ever recorded. The drought over the past three years has been one of the most severe on record, and has been intensified by higher temperatures caused by global warming.
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