Description:
Lower Falls of the McCloud River in Northern California after a week of steady rain. Nearly ten inches of rain fell in this area in less than a week. Although the river is at very high flow in this image, it was actually down from it's peak a few days earlier. The water was nearly two feet higher than this at one point during the storm, as evidenced by the location of debris on the banks. In the normally calm punchbowl below the waterfall, you can see a whirlpool caused by the sheer amount of churning water coming over the rocks. I have not seen the river this high in fifteen years, even during spring runoff. During normal flow, the waterfall is less than one third the width it is here. In the summer, people routinely jump from the rocks to swim in the pool. The McCloud is one of the many rivers in Northern California affected by the "atmospheric river event" of 2012.
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