Storms pouring massive water flows into Isabella Lake, and soon, the river through Bakersfield
Mar. 14—Professional water managers, hydrographers and their ilk often tend to be levelheaded, calm and restrained.
They have just about seen it all, and they don't often let anything get in the way of their analytical, unflappable demeanor.
But this year may be different.
As California and the Kern River Basin are battered by one massive storm after another, resulting in what could be a once-in-a-lifetime water year, it's hard to put a damper on the astonishing events they are now witnessing, documenting and helping to manage.
"Just WOW!" Miguel Chavez, hydrographic supervisor with the city of Bakersfield Water Resources, said in an email.
"Part of my job," Chavez said, "is spent looking at the record books — and to witness an event like this is astonishing.
"At the same time," he said, "you feel for the people impacted by the flooding."
According to Chavez, in a 24-hour period from Thursday, March 9 to Friday, March 10, Isabella gained 41,869 acre feet; and from Friday to Saturday, the lake gained an additional 41,740 acre feet.
That represented a 41 percent increase in the lake level in 48 hours.
And the water keeps pouring in.
"We started with storage levels of 142,554 acre feet (in the lake) on March 9, and since then we have gained a total of 119,700 acre feet," Chavez said. "Storage levels as of Monday were 262,254 acre feet.
Kern River Watermaster Mark Mulkay, another local water professional, was equally impressed by what he's been seeing.
Last Friday afternoon, instantaneous inflow of water into Isabella was approximately 48,000 cubic feet per second, Mulkay said.
"I believe that is the highest inflow rate since 1983," he noted, referring to another huge water year four decades earlier.
But what about the snow? Won't all this rain melt the all-important snowpack, which acts as a bank to hold great amounts of water frozen until it melts gradually through the spring and summer?
"The last Department of Water Resources forecast for the Kern River Basin was 262 percent of normal," the watermaster said of the local snowpack, "but that was only through the end of February.
"We have received almost nine inches of precipitation since the first of March so I expect the next forecast to be in the 300 percent range," he said. "This will put us in a similar situation as the 1983 flood year."
Although last weekend's storm rained on low-level snow and melted that snow, it also added more snow in the higher elevations, Mulkay said.
Getting "on-the-ground" measurements of the snowpack has been difficult this winter because of the storms, he said, but there appears to be a lot of higher elevation snow with more to come this week and next.
To get a sense of just how much water is stored in the snowpack above the Kern River Watershed, recent forecasts show 1.6 million acre feet of water, Mulkay said.
"If that all runs off, it would fill Isabella three times."
Meanwhile, the Kern River interests are meeting regularly to determine how best to manage this year's challenging runoff.
"Expect outflows from Isabella to begin to ramp up by early next week," Mulkay added.
That means more water in the lower Kern River.
Chavez said he felt a sense of urgency after the storm passed and he saw the numbers.
"We have a lot of water to move!" he said. "With more storms coming, we are inching closer to reaching historic snow levels which will lead to heavy spring/summer runoff.
"The river is full-go now and I anticipate flows through Bakersfield will continue into early fall," Chavez said.
That means significant amounts of water will flow in the river through Bakersfield all summer.
And that's something to get excited about.
Reporter Steven Mayer can be reached at 661-395-7353. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter: @semayerTBC.
