PHOTOS: California lakes hit hard by extreme drought
Published on January 24th, 2014
California’s reservoirs are severely depleted due to the ongoing widespread drought conditions in the state. As of Jan. 21, 2014, 67 percent of California was in extreme drought, the second worst category possible on the U.S. Drought Monitor.
According to the California Department of Water Resources, Lake Shasta and Lake Oroville are only 36 percent of capacity. Folsom Lake is just 17 percent capacity.
Starting with Folsom Lake above, we’ve matched up recent photos of these three depleted lakes from the California Department of Water Resources with images from Google Earth that show the lakes when they were much fuller.