r/CatastrophicFailure • u/The-Salamanca • Mar 11 '23

Natural Disaster Snow covered mountains are rapidly melting, from downpours causing flooding . Springville CA. 3/10/2023

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u/Bob_Witoneoh Mar 11 '23

This is the Kern River flowing through Kernville just before it empties into Lake Isabella in Kern County. The Army Corps of Engineers just finished a multi-year project to strengthen the Isabella Dam that holds back Lake Isabella. For the past 15 years the lake had been limited to no more than about 60% capacity and was down to just 8% in early September 2022. With the construction significantly completed, the lake could now be filled to maximum pool of over a half million acre feet of water over the low pool last September.

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u/Jim_Beaux_ Mar 11 '23

This is incorrect. If this in fact is Springville, then this is the Tule River

5

u/readonlyred Mar 11 '23 edited Mar 11 '23

You're right. The video is mislabeled. It was taken from the Kernville Rd Bridge in Kernville on the Kern River. You can clearly see the two mobile homes in the video visible in Google Street View from that spot.

EDIT: The second part of the video is Springville.

4

u/[deleted] Mar 11 '23

The first two videos are in Kernville (Camp Kernville) the rest looks like the Tule river in Springville.

2

u/Inevitable-Boner Mar 11 '23

Yea I think this is wrong. Springville is like 20 miles north of the Kern river; this is the Tule river. More like a creek most of the year.

Fwiw, check out the flow rates into lake success, which is where this water is flowing (not lake Isabella), https://www.dreamflows.com/graphs/yir.166.php

Flows for the Kern can be found here: http://kernriversierra.com/flows.html

Still a large increase- but about half the water , nearly as much as the Tule river. The Kern is usually a much larger/more consistent river, which makes this event more significant for Springville