Water-starved Lake Oroville rises dramatic 20 feet in six days

A view of Lake Oroville on Jan. 20, 2016. California's second-largest reservoir water level dropped to 649 feet on Dec. 9. With recent storms, its filling back up and is now at 694 feet. A view of Lake Oroville on Jan. 20, 2016. California's second-largest reservoir water level dropped to 649 feet on Dec. 9. With recent storms, its filling back up and is now at 694 feet. Photo: Courtesy California Department Of Water Resources Photo: Courtesy California Department Of Water Resources Image 1 of / 54 Caption Close Water-starved Lake Oroville rises dramatic 20 feet in six days 1 / 54 Back to Gallery

El Niño is officially here, and the recent soakings walloping Northern California are recharging California's drought-ravaged reservoirs with water.

Folsom Lake east of Sacramento rose 44 feet in the last month, and even more impressive, the elevation at Lake Oroville shot up a dramatic 20 feet in only six days.

"This isn't entirely unusual, but it doesn't happen every day," said Kevin Wright, the California Department of Water Resources Oroville Field Division's water services supervisor. "We haven't seen the water level rise like this since we've had the drought over the past approximately four years."

Lake Oroville, the second-largest manmade reservoir in California after Shasta, registered its lowest elevation ever at 645 feet above sea level on Sept. 7, 1977. Last year, on Dec. 9, the lake came close to this record, dipping down to 649 feet. But the recent storms are replenishing the lake, and the elevation on Jan. 19 was 694 feet.

"We had over three inches of rain locally in Oroville over a two day period," Wright said. "The ground was already wet on the surface from the past storms so that allowed for this heavy rain to provide more runoff."

He added: "We're getting some snow melt runoff. It may be some rain falling at lower elevations and melting some snow below 5,000 or 6,000 feet. We'll know better after we do our surveys of the snow pack."

Is this all a result of El Niño? Wright says he can't confirm this, but many meteorologists are saying the weather pattern known for bringing warmer temperatures and heavy rain is here in full force.

Lake Oroville, lying in the foothills on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, is a key gauge of the state's water health. Storing winter and spring runoff that's released into the Feather River to meet State Water Project needs, Oroville is important for flood control, water use and recreation. The lake reaches full capacity at an elevation of 900 feet above sea level, which means another 206 feet are needed.

Wright said that at this point there's not a crystal ball to tell us what will happen by winter's end.

"There's a lot of winter left," Wright said. "Most of us in the business would never predict that this early in the season when we start out so low. We're hopeful that if we continue with storms that are like those coming in right now that we could come close but there aren't any guarantees."

He added: "We're not out of the woods. We're still in a drought and it's unwise to think that you can use a lot of water right now. Please conserve—everyone."