Tulare Lake Resurrected by Record Rains and Snowpack.
After relentless storms, once-depleted rivers are roaring from the Sierra Nevada into California's Central Valley, spilling from canals and broken levees into fields as the phantom Tulare Lake reemerges. Tulare Lake was once the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River and was last full in 1878. In recent weeks, some 10,000 acres of farmland have already flooded, and more inundation is likely as California’s record-setting snowpack melts off. The lake's rise is a small reminder of what was once the center of life for the Native Yokut people who lived by its shores and along the rivers.