It hasn’t been a particularly wet year so they’re not the raging torrents we sometimes see but the waterfalls around Yosemite Valley are starting to put on a nice show. Unfortunately, unless we get a lot more snow, and it’s very wet, they’re going to dry up well before July.
Yosemite National Park’s marquee waterfalls have turned from trickles to torrents in the past 10 days. Temperatures in the mid-60s Sunday melted snow in the high country as the spring waterfall season has begun.
Yosemite, Bridalveil, Vernal and Nevada falls, the best-known waterfalls in Yosemite National Park, are all flush with early-spring flows. Other major Yosemite waterfalls – Sentinel, Ribbon, Horsetail, Illilouette, Wapama and Chilnualna – are in gear.
The best prediction, based on snowmelt projections, is that most waterfalls in the central Sierra probably will peak the third week of May and be in good shape from now through June.
Snow surveys in Yosemite’s high country last week showed that depths varied from a low of 20 inches at Lake Vernon to 73 inches at Grace Meadow. Water content was 43 to 47 percent of average for the Tuolumne and Merced River watersheds.
(via http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/04/08/SPE61O0IIO.DTL#ixzz1rY2PteXZ)
Photo by Raul Diaz. Check out more of Raul’s photos and his writings over on his photoblog.