The 90-mile-long South Fork of the American River brought us to this point. The three forks of the American River flow into Folsom Lake. Every second on Wednesday afternoon, 590,000 gallons flowed in and nearly 400,000 gallons roared out of five of the dam’s spillways, twisting into the Sacramento River, on a race to the Pacific. For the first time in a decade, water managers opened floodgates on the Sacramento River to turn a the vast Yolo flood basin into a veritable inland sea. A week of storms in Northern California has brought a vigorous flow to the American River.

Source: Los Angeles Times January 14, 2017 13:02 UTC