Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Castle Lake Snow Fed Waterfall

This picture is the same spot as Castle Lake 2 hours before Eclipse with a wider shot of the same thing. I hadn't seen this one here when I put the other one here on the site. This new one gives you the experience of how this is a springtime event directly fed by snow melting. However, once these patches of snow melt then springs at other points on the lake take over and this becomes dry bare rock again usually sometime in late June or early July or sooner depending upon weather conditions that year.

Later: 2 days after I took this picture I returned to this spot with another group of friends and my son because my daughter and her boyfriend had had to return to Oregon to their jobs. However, the waterfall had already reduced in size and volume by about 2/3. So, it is possible it will reduce further and be no more with in days or weeks this year. This year most of California got about 80% of average rainfall. However, I think about 23 to 25 states in the lower 48 are in complete drought cycles. This might become more permanent in the years to come because of global climate change. It is possible that the desertification may move further northwards in many U.S. lower 48 states to where the more Northern 48 states become the rainy states and the more southern states become more desertified. I don't think this will be like this every year but I sense that this is a new tendency for weather in a world where the ice caps are melting off. Maybe most of us eventually will live in the northern states or in Canada during the next 50 years or so. Time will tell.

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