Rain isn’t in capital’s forecast for another week. How did storms affect Folsom Lake?

Folsom Lake levels have increased since the storms that started around the beginning of the new year.

The lake sat at 420 feet as of Tuesday, which is about 35 feet higher than the reservoir level before the storms, according to Richard Preston-LeMay, the Folsom sector superintendent for California State Parks.

He said the storms increased the American River inflow from both the north and south forks.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation began flood management operations and increased outflows after Jan. 1, Preston-LeMay said. However, the lake elevation slightly rose last week, since releases have been reduced again.

“We are beginning to see some driftwood and other floating debris in the lake as a result of the (runoff), but so far not as significant as what we saw in 2017,” he said via email.

Water is measured in acre-feet, where one acre-foot is equal to a sheet of water 1 acre in area and 1 foot in depth. That equates to 326,000 gallons. Folsom Lake sits at 540,536 acre-feet as of Wednesday, according to the California Department of Water Resources, or 55% of capacity and 126% of its average for this time of year.

During the 2017 storms that ravaged Northern California, Folsom Lake reached 72% capacity with 707,516 acre-feet of water on Jan. 11, 2017, according to water officials. The capacity of the lake is just under a million acre-feet.

This story was originally published January 19, 2023 at 1:47 PM.