After almost a year of being too dry to even be considered lakes, multiple reservoirs — including Castaic Lake — have increased water levels to record highs.

At the start of 2017, Santa Clarita saw 4.85 inches of rainfall by February, a figure the SCV has not come close to through the first two months of the year going back to 2014, according to the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

“We’re really fortunate that we got a lot of water,” said Tracy Hild, the supervising lake lifeguard at Castaic Lake. “It’s opening our swim beaches.”

“It got to the point where it got so low that you’d drop 30 feet,” continued Hild, describing the shallowness of one of the swimming areas.

The water levels of the Upper Lake at Castaic Lake have reached 1,504 feet, according to Hild, which is just shy of the 1,515 capacity.

“Our lower lake is at 1,136 feet,” said Hild. “That is actually overflowing, and the water is being used to fill aqueducts and underground water reservoirs.”

This overflow differs from 2014, when Santa Clarita only saw 2.2 inches of rain in January and February, and 1.65 inches in 2015 before a wet January helped bring the 2016 total to 3.31 inches through February of that year.

For a link to satellite images of rising water levels of 12 state reservoirs from Lakepedia, click here.

Despite the rain, though, Castaic Lake officials remain prepared to conserve water for the dry season.

“All of our sprinkler systems run on our lake water,” said Hild. “We’re not pulling a lot from domestic water.”

The lake facilities also use water conservation toilets and automatic shutoff sinks.

“We all had brown parks for a year or two,” said Hild, explaining how all state facilities were ordered to reduce their water usage. “Now the swim beaches are good, and looking pretty.”