February 2024<\/a>, when an atmospheric river dumped an additional 1.5 inches of rain onto the lake, making it deep enough that people could kayak on it. NASA researchers found that the temporary lake was about 3 feet to less than 1.5 feet deep over the course of about six weeks in February and March 2024. <\/p>\nThe lake there today doesn\u2019t really compare, locals say.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an attraction but it\u2019s not really a lake,\u201d said an employee at the Death Valley Inn, who asked to be identified only as Katt, when reached by phone Thursday. \u201cIt\u2019s the size of a lake but it\u2019s not deep. … It\u2019s more like a very, very large riverbed without the flow \u2014 a wading pool maybe.\u201d <\/p>\n
![\"Lake](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765634664_870_\")
<\/p>\n
People wade in the calm waters of Lake Manly in Badwater Basin in February 2024.<\/p>\n
(Robert Gauthier \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
Regardless of its size, the novelty of the lake is an attraction unto itself.<\/p>\n
The inn has gotten more visitors since the rains, Katt said, because the hotel is only about seven miles from the park entrance and isn\u2019t as expensive as the hotels inside its boundaries. <\/p>\n
She said that business has increased 20% to 30% since the lake reappeared. <\/p>\n
When the lake last emerged in 2023, the inn sold out for a few nights, she said. She has visited it herself recently and said the water went up to her knee in some spots.<\/p>\n
The recent storms have also closed roads throughout the park, covering paved roads in debris and making them impassable, according to a National Park Service news release. Zabriskie Point, Dante\u2019s View, Badwater Basin and Mesquite Sand Dunes remain accessible and open. <\/p>\n
Visitors should proceed with caution if traveling on back-country roads and be prepared to self-rescue if necessary, officials said. <\/p>\n
The lake is much smaller compared with previous years, and there\u2019s no way to tell how long it will last, said Death Valley park ranger Nichole Andler. <\/p>\n
She said that how long the lake is there depends on how much wind Death Valley gets, how warm it\u2019ll be and if it rains again anytime soon. Visitors can expect to see the lake into the new year and maybe a little longer because temperatures have been cool. <\/p>\n
\u201cSome of the best views of the lake are from Dante\u2019s View, and sunrise is a great time to see it,\u201d Andler added. <\/p>\n
Death Valley gets only about 2 inches of rain per year because of rain shadows from mountains. The towering Sierra Nevada range stops moisture from coming in from the Pacific, causing most rain to fall on the other side of the mountains. <\/p>\n
Death Valley\u2019s low elevation means that any rainfall that does arrive usually evaporates due to the heat. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Between 128,000 and 186,000 years ago, when ice covered the Sierra Nevada, a lake 100 miles long and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[51342,44571,51346,2641,51344,59,48,52,51,1637,47,50,49,51345,11053,1833,62,36536,51343,18120,72],"class_list":["post-93336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-ancient-lake","tag-death-valley","tag-desert-lake","tag-foot","tag-ice-age","tag-inch","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-life","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-more-visitor","tag-november","tag-park","tag-rain","tag-record-rainfall","tag-snow-capped-mountain","tag-view","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}