Floodwater (dark blue) stands out against the vegetation in agricultural fields around Tulare Lake near Corcoran, California, in this enhanced color image taken by Landsat 8 on March 29, 2023. Heavy rain and snow in the first three months of 2023 have once again brought water to Tulare’s lakebed, but also flooding several nearby towns. 2023 has been the wettest year in the region’s history.
Tulare Lake, in California’s San Joaquin Valley, was once the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River. By 1920, the rivers that fed the lake were dammed and diverted for uses such as irrigation. Since then, the lakebed has been covered with farms that grow a variety of crops.
See what the region looked like in March 2022.
Image Credit: NASA/Lauren Dauphin/USGS