Abby Wines, a park ranger at Death Valley National Park, explains how a temporary lake was able to form in California’s Death Valley National Park. The lake is deep enough that some people are in kayaks. February 21, 2024.
DEATH VALLEY, Calif. – The National Park Service recently announced that boating will no longer take place in the driest part of the continent because the lake that appeared in Death Valley is disappearing, but NASA has revealed exactly how big the lake is. The satellite image shown below has been released. It was called Ghost Lake.
Death Valley National Park averages just 2 inches of annual precipitation and 130 inches of evaporation, but it has been a boating mecca for inland kayakers since the summer after the lake reappeared 10,000 years after it disappeared .
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Named “Lake Manly,” development began during Hurricane Hillary. A monster Category 4 storm hit Mexico in August 2023 and continued into California. The National Hurricane Center has issued the first ever tropical storm warning for Southern California. More than a year’s worth of rain fell in just one day. Floodwaters flooded almost all basins within the national park.
After Hurricane Hillary, Death Valley National Park turns into a land of ephemeral lakes
Photo comparing Ghost Lake in 2024 and dry salt flats in 2021.
(David Swanson/AFP, David Buttow/Corbis, Andia/Universal Images Group, NPS/K. Skilling/Getty Images)
“The most notable one is the one in Badwater Basin,” Death Valley National Park park ranger Matthew Lamar told FOX Weather in November.
Badwater Basin is a sweeping salt flat 82 feet below sea level, making it the lowest point in North America, Lamar said. He said the area was filled with two feet of water after the storm, but there was no permanent equipment to measure it because the area is typically a desert. Rangers and park visitors waded through the water to determine depth.
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By November, the lake’s water level had dropped to a few inches, he said. And then came the winter of 51 atmospheric rivers flooding the West Coast. In February, he also received three-quarters of the year’s worth of rain in one day, and the kayakers set sail again.
Atmospheric river sheds snow and floods roads in Death Valley National Park
File: Kayaking in Badwater Basin, February 9, 2024 (Photo: NPS/Michael Kohler)
(NPS/FOX Weather)
There are no instruments to measure water depth in the desert.
NASA measured the depth of the ephemeral lake using the U.S. and French Surface Water Ocean Topography satellites. Over a six-week period from February 2nd to March 4th, water depths ranged from 3 feet to 1.5 feet. Analysts used satellites to measure water surface elevations and combined that with U.S. Geological Survey data about the basin.
Images from NASA tell the story of a stormy February and windy March.
Kayaking canceled in Death Valley due to temporary high winds on lake 2 miles north
The displayed water depth is in meters. NASA explained the new influx of water.
(NASA)
“Researchers found that water levels varied across space and time during the approximately 10 days between SWOT observations. Shortly after a series of storms in early February, the temporary lake was created with a length of approximately 6 miles (10 kilometers) and 3 miles long (5 kilometers at its widest point),” NASA said in a statement. “Each pixel in the image represents an area approximately 330 feet by 330 feet (100 meters by 100 meters).”
Another storm brought strong winds to Death Valley from February 29th to March 4th. The wind moved a shallow lake several miles. This happened when kayaking was temporarily suspended. On Sunday, the park closed the “lake” to boating.
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File: Footprints in the mud leave scars on the landscape that won’t disappear until the next prehistoric lake floods.
(Abby Wines/NPS/FOX Weather)
Don’t even leave any footprints
“Lake Manley, a temporary shallow lake in the Badwater Basin (formed after storms in August 2023 and February 2024), is rapidly shrinking and is currently only a few inches deep. The lake is at least 1/4 mile from the road and is “rough and uneven salt and mud (no road),” the NPS posted. “Due to the lake’s shallow depth and the damage caused by people dragging personal watercraft across the salt flats, the lake is closed to all boating (kayaks, paddleboards, canoes, pool floats, etc.). ”
However, visitors can walk in the water and enjoy the reflections of the mountains. However, park officials have prohibited walking or leaving footprints in the mud, which would leave a scar on the landscape until the next stormy weather resurfaces the lake.
