Time lapse shows California ‘ghost lake’ suddenly disappear
Anew time-lapse video shared on social media shows Tulare Lake, California’s ghost lake, disappear after re-forming last year. A series of atmospheric rivers hit California last year during an abnormally wet winter season and caused the lake to reemerge in the San Joaquin Valley. The original lake was once much larger than Lake Tahoe and was known to be the largest freshwater lake in the West, but it began to dry up in the late 1800s and fully disappeared 80 years ago when water was diverted and the land was repurposed for agricultural uses. Atmospheric rivers are a “long, narrow region in the atmosphere—like rivers in the sky—that transport most of the water vapor outside of the tropics,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.