Latest Flow info for California Rivers
Posted June 4, 2009 by Malina
The roller coaster continues! We started out the 2009 California river rafting season with a serious “sky-is-falling-drought-of-biblical-proportions” message from the California government. Then, it became clear that while it wouldn’t be a high water year, it was hardly going to be a disaster–and we’ve had outstanding trips on all our spring rivers as a result.
As temperatures started to rise the snowpack began to melt, leading to higher flows on rivers from the South Fork to the Merced. Flows had recently started to drop to summer levels on most rivers–and spring runs began to drop out entirely. This week’s unexpected thunder storms are the latest shake-up, adding water to several watersheds like the Kaweah and the Merced. We’ll just have to wait and see how long the storms’ effects last.
The Tuolumne had unexpectedly high water this week–over 7,000 CFS! Flows will come down on T in a couple weeks and we’ll get to start rafting the Upper Tuolumne, or Cherry Creek.