Oncoming storms will add to lake storage

The potential to allow storage behind Success Dam to grow to 56,000 acre feet could get a boost this weekend and next week as a series of storms moves through the area.

The forecast is for showers today, then a more powerful storm to arrive Sunday. The national weather service in Hanford said the chance of showers is in the forecast for every day into Friday.

“We’re in a pretty unsettled pattern,” said meteorologist Cindy Bean at the NWS office in Hanford.

The chance of rain and snow in the mountains is good news to Dan Vink, manager of the Lower Tule Irrigation District and watermaster of Lake Success.

He said the Army Corps of Engineers is looking at the “possibility of allowing storage up to 56,000 acre feet in the reservoir,” which would be the most the lake has held in several years.

Because of concerns over the safety of the dam the lake has been limited to just 40,000 acre feet of storage, but with the storms in December there is a lot of water to come down from the mountains in the form of snowmelt.

Vink said the estimate is the lake will see 67,000 acre feet of runoff between April and July, a little better than average. “It’s pretty similar to last year. We should have water in the system through Labor Day,” he said.

Plans right now are to take the lake up to 40,000 acre feet by the first of April, then hold it there for a few weeks. As of Friday afternoon, storage behind the dam was just over 29,000 acre feet.

Vink said the district is in full irrigation run, but is mainly using water from the Friant-Kern canal.

The need for irrigation water may drop over the next few days. Last night’s storm is expected to move out today, but the storm coming in Sunday will be more typical of a winter storm than a spring storm.

The snow level last night was expected to be 3,500 feet, and while that will rise a bit Sunday, it will drop down again Monday. Bean said the Sunday system is rapidly developing and could bring as much as a half of an inch or more of rain to Porterville. When it dries out late next week, the area could see a total of more than an inch of rain.

So far this month has been dry. Weather observer Greg Chadwell said Porterville has had just .04 of an inch so far this month. Average rainfall for March is 2.33 inches.

The storm will arrive on strong winds, with gusts up to 60 mph expected in some parts of the Valley, 35 mph in Porterville. Snowfall through Monday could be more than a foot or two. There is a chance of thunderstorms today.

Temperatures will vary from the upper 50s today, to the low 60s Sunday and then back into the 50s for the early part of next week.