Rain impacts across the Central Valley floor and local lakes

VISALIA, Calif. (KFSN) -- With storms bringing rainfall to the valley floor on Wednesday and the potential for thunderstorms, hail and gusty winds on Thursday.

National weather service meteorologists are predicting a wetter March than usual.

"Definitely Looks like it's going to be wetter than normal for this time of the year, especially through moving into the 3rd week of March," says Felix Castro, a Meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

Felix continues, "And also that means that temperature will be between 70 to 80% below normal, because we are going to be with a very wet pattern during the next couple of weeks."

For the valley more rain means fuller reservoirs, like Terminus Dam at Lake Kaweah.

"More water storage for us that will be able to be utilized in the later summer months where we're not getting that kind of rainfall. Water is a life blood throughout the Central Valley and is integral to our agricultural system here," explains Hayden Doyel, a lead park ranger at Lake Kaweah.

Hayden also mentions the dam is about 28% full of its 185,630 acre feet capacity, which is higher than this time last year.

"We're actually a little bit higher when we're looking at our water storage. We are a little over 51,000 acre feet currently. This time last year we were just under 40,000," details Hayden.

More rain also means more recreational opportunities such as boating, fishing and camping.

It's good news for small towns in the area like Three Rivers as increased foot traffic means more business for local shops.

But the impact goes beyond the neighboring communities.

"We've seen some very dry winters where our reservoir doesn't fill up very much and that definitely impacts our downstream users and their irrigation and agriculture here in the Central Valley however, when we do see quite a bit of rain during the wet season, we see increase levels increase storage throughout the hotter months of the year and obviously more water for recreation," mentions Hayden.

The reservoir mentions they do keep a close eye on water levels, especially when there is incoming rain and in later months, potential snow runoff coming from the mountains.

In the meantime, they are ready for this week's rain and chances of rain next week.

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