Dramatic photos of SoCal’s Irvine Lake rebounding after seven years of drought conditions

What a difference a year – and a whole lot of rain – can make for a reservoir.

Irvine Lake was created in 1931 with the completion of the Santiago Dam just west of the Santa Ana Mountains. While it can hold as much as 25,000 acre feet of water (an acre foot is enough to cover a football field at one foot deep), through California’s punishing seven-year drought it often held much less.

Just a year ago, the water level was at 2,700 acre feet and large swaths of parched dirt were left exposed. Then the rains came this winter, boosting the reservoir’s volume nearly five-fold to 15,715 acre feet, Serrano Water District General Manager Jerry Vilander said. Serrano is one of two providers that pull drinking water from Irvine Lake.

By now, the high water mark has dropped back to 9,345 acre feet, but Vilander expects that’s enough to serve customers through December without the district having to purchase imported water supplies.

He also said the reservoir has managed to adapt to weather-related and seasonal fluctuations over its 88 years – and anyone visiting Irvine Lake recently could have backed that up. After three years of being closed to the public, the lake has become a bird’s paradise, with families of long-necked Western grebes floating peacefully and white-plumed snowy egrets wading the shallows on the hunt for a meal.

Now that the lake has reopened for shoreline fishing on weekends, the birds will have to share the placid spot with human anglers also hoping to land some fish.