DELICATE WATER ZONE · D0 — Abnormally dry over a member dam
Fresno and the Kings River valley, California
The south valley farms and cities live on two rivers' pools: Millerton on the San Joaquin, whose Friant canals move the water south and east, and Pine Flat on the Kings, the flood bank the watermaster divides among the districts. Both fill from the southern Sierra snowpack and drain through the irrigation season.
What this desk cannot see: The valley's other half is groundwater — the overdrafted aquifer SGMA is supposed to rein in — and no single open index measures it; subsidence surveys tell that story, not a gauge this desk can read daily.
The reservoirs this zone drinks from
| Reservoir | % full | Storage | Elevation | 30-day trend | Drought at the dam |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pine Flat Lake CA | 17.3% | 173,138 af | 748.3 ft | -3,607 af/day | D0 — Abnormally dry |
| Millerton Lake CA | 46.4% | 241,469 af | 508.5 ft | -1,373 af/day | D0 — Abnormally dry |
af = acre-feet; a dash means the measure is not published for that reservoir. Each name links to the reservoir's full page — gauge, record, snowpack and sources.
Zone prose is curated by this desk with its sourcing inline; the numbers are the member reservoirs' own operators', on the bases named on each reservoir's page. Back to the national desk.