Even with California's recent record rainfall, the state is still a long way from recovering from the drought affecting the region.
But despite the fact that Folsom Lake, one of the state's reservoirs, isn't full, dam officials began emptying out a significant portion of the water into the American River on Tuesday, according to reporting by the Sacramento Bee.
Officials made the decision preemptively due to the record snow falling in the Sierra recently, which when temperatures warm will melt, and flood nearby areas, including Sacramento, the paper reported.
"We have a pretty relatively large American River watershed, and a correspondingly small reservoir," said Drew Lessard, the area manager for the Central California office of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, in an interview with the paper. "We have to…be very careful about incoming storms on the American River."
This comes after a particularly dy summer, when reservoirs and lakes throughout the state reached dramatically low levels, spurring water conservation restrictions in several counties.
Folsom Lake officials are "working to store as much water as possible from winter storms for releases later in the year when most needed," the paper reported.
Sacramento is markedly prone to flooding, and the decision was made to prevent additional risk to the city.
The water emptied from the reservoir is being done so at a moderate, measured level, Lessard told the paper, starting from 700 cubic feet of water per second to more than 2,200 on Tuesday, which will slowly grow to 5,000 cubic feet per second on Thursday, the paper reported.
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