PHOTO ESSAY
The Phantom Lake
Tulare Lake dried up a century ago.
In 2023, after an uncommonly wet winter,
the lake made a stunning reappearance,
inundating an area the size of Lake Tahoe
in the heart of California’s Central Valley.
Words and Images
by Scott London
Tulare Lake was once the largest body of fresh water in the American West, a vast inland sea in the heart of California’s San Joaquin Valley, about halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. After its tributaries were dammed, diked and diverted a century ago, the lake dried up and the land was reclaimed for agriculture.
Little remained of the original Tulare Lake except for a few residual wetlands and marshes. Yet the lake made several surprise comebacks in the second half of the 20th century. After re-emerging in 1969, 1983, and 1997 following seasons of unusually heavy rainfall, some locals began referring to it as “the phantom lake.”
In 2023, Tulare Lake returned with a vengeance. After one of the wettest winters in more than a century, the rivers carrying rain and snowmelt from the nearby Sierra Nevada mountains overwhelmed the dams and levees designed to hold the water back.
The lake that formed wasn’t deep, but it was enormous. At its peak, it covered an area the size of Lake Tahoe—about 180 square miles. When you gazed out from the water’s edge it extended as far as the eye could see, disappearing beyond the horizon like a shimmering mirage.
The re-emergence of the lake wreaked havoc on communities in and around the Tulare basin. Rising floodwaters forced evacuations as people rushed to higher ground. Homes were lost, bridges destroyed and roads washed out.
In Tulare County, one of the world’s largest milk-producing regions, thousands of cows were lost to the rapidly rising waters. Farming operations—the mainstay of the local economy—were washed out of vital crops and many farm workers found themselves suddenly without jobs.
Corcoran, a community of about 22,000 people on the northeastern edge of Tulare Lake, was especially hard hit. The levee protecting the town held up, but many of the low-lying ranches and farming operations on the other side were inundated.
In 2023, experts predicted that it would take as long as two or three years for the waters to recede. But the lake has been drying up faster than expected. As of April 2024, it’s just a fraction of the size it was in the spring and summer of 2023. Farming operations are back up and running and much of the debris from the floods has been cleaned up.
Extreme weather events—including atmospheric rivers that bring torrential rainfall and severe flooding to many parts of California—are becoming increasingly common. While life is returning to normal in the communities in and around the Tulare Basin, the people know it’s only a matter of time before the phantom lake returns.
