Has it ever!
The seemingly non-stop rainstorms and snowstorms (and rain-snow storms) this winter in California and northern Nevada have added an astounding amount of water to the area's reservoirs, including, of course, Lake Tahoe, which supplies almost all of northern Nevada's water.
From October 1, 2016, to February 14, 2017, a mind-boggling 139 billion gallons of water (give or take a few hundred million) have flowed into Tahoe.
How much is 139 billion gallons of water?
Well, it's enough to supply the average annual water consumption for nearly a half-million households.
Put another way, if you drank a gallon of water a day, it would take you approximately 381 million years to consume that much.
Or, every man, woman, and child on the planet would have to drink approximately 20 gallons to lower the lake level to where it was last September 30.
Anyhoo ...
The lake's surface level rose 3.55 feet in four and a half months. Keep in mind that Tahoe has a surface area of 191 square miles (not quite as big as Lake Mead's 247 square miles, but still).
By comparison, over the same period during the last exceptionally wet winter, 2010-2011, the lake level rose a foot. And six out of the past nine years, the lake level dropped from October 1 to February 14.
This year's total, so far, has brought Tahoe from slightly below the natural rim at 6,222.67 feet above sea level (the natural rim is 6,223, at which point water flows into the Truckee River) to 6,226.22, which is 2.88 feet below the Tahoe's legal limit of 6,229 feet. (At 6,229+ feet, the lake water flows over the top of the dam at Tahoe City into the Truckee.)
And it's not over yet, not by a long shot. The "water equivalent" in the northern Sierra snowpack stood at 209% of normal in mid-February. Since then, one large storm and several small ones have added to it.
And the wet winter continues.
