See This California Reservoir Completely Full Again After Record Low During 2021 Drought

For much of the past three years, the West has been facing a severe drought that led many precious water sources like Lake Mead in Nevada to reach alarmingly low levels. But after California's Lake Oroville reached a historic low in 2021, the reservoir is back to its full capacity, and even surpassed normal levels for this time of year.

The California Department of Water Resources shared a promising update about the state's second-largest reservoir earlier this month. Photos taken of the Enterprise Bridge over the body of water in July 2021 and June 2023 show the water level's drastic rise.

Oroville's depth reached 628.47 feet in September 2021, filling just 24 percent of the lake's capacity and marking the lowest water level ever recorded there. According to the DWR, the current water level of approximately 900 feet puts the lake at 127 percent capacity of where it would normally be during the summer. In total, Lake Oroville has crept up more than 240 feet since December 2022 and gained more than 2.5 million acre-feet of water.

This marks the first time Lake Oroville has been totally full since 2012, and only the second time in the past 15 years it's been that high, per ABC News. In fact, DWR is monitoring the lake in case it overflows and water enters the emergency spillway.

This should come as welcome news for the more than 18 million Californians who rely on the lake for freshwater. It also accompanies some good news out of Lake Mead, which has similarly experienced a rising water level over the past year. After bottoming out in July 2022 at approximately 1,040 feet, it's been on a steady climb since April 2023 and currently sits at about 1,055 feet. Elsewhere in California, melting snowpack has caused floods at Yosemite National Park.

It remains to be seen just how long these elevated levels will last, but it's certainly made an encouraging dent in the North American drought of the early 2020s.