Is Lake Shasta's Water Level Rising?

As relentless rain continues to batter the Golden State, water levels in California's drought-stricken reservoirs appear to be on the rise. The state's largest reservoir, Lake Shasta, received over 13 inches of rain in the first 11 days of 2023, but its water levels are still below what they usually are at this time of year.

"We've had three consecutive years of drought, probably one of the worst droughts California has ever experienced," Ernest Conant, regional director of the California branch of the U.S. Bureau for Reclamation, told Newsweek.

"At the beginning of this water year, which is October 1, 2022, the lake was a third full, at 33 percent. We're now at 42 percent and climbing. We're gaining ground, but we still have a long way to go," Conant said.

Donald Bader, the Shasta area manager for the Bureau of Reclamation, said that despite the 13 inches of rain that have fallen on Lake Shasta since the start of January, the lake's water level is still below average.

"Right now, we're at about 80 percent of what we normally would be on today's date," he said. "We were in the 60s before, on historic average, so we're trending in the right direction, but what concerns us all the time is that the weather can change on a dime," Bader said.

There were many storms in October and December last year, Conant said, but this was not enough to restore the reservoir's water levels. "It just stopped raining in January, February and March, and we had the lowest precipitation ever on record for those three months. That's why we were in such a dire situation this past year."

Jeff Mount, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California's Water Policy Center, explained why Lake Shasta is so crucial. "Shasta...plays a crucial role in supplying water to the federally managed Central Valley Project, which supplies water to cities and farms throughout the Central Valley. Shasta also provides flood control and hydropower," he said.

Shasta is the largest of several reservoirs that make up the Central Valley Project, which is run by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. "We supply water to about 3 million acres of some of the most productive farmland in the state, and we supply water to municipal suppliers that provide water to about 6 million Californians," Conant said. "In addition, we supply water to 19 wildlife refuges throughout the Central Valley."

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