❄️ How much California drains into this bay?

Here in Sausalito, the big water you can see is San Francisco Bay. A bay is like a giant bathtub of water hugged by land. But where does all that water come from? Let's follow one snowflake to find out. Far away, in tall mountains called the Sierra Nevada, a snowflake lands on a pointy peak. When spring comes, the sun warms it up.

It melts into one tiny drop of water. The drop trickles into a creek, and then into a big river. Water always flows downhill, like you on a slide. So the river rolls down the mountains, past farms and towns. Other rivers join in, and the water gets bigger and bigger. It pours through other bays, one after another, like rooms in a long house.

Our drop has traveled farther than a school bus field trip, and it never once asked if we're there yet! At last it reaches right here, the bay by Sausalito. Water from almost half of all California ends up in this one bay! Try counting the sailboats in the harbor while our drop floats past them. Then it slips out under the Golden Gate into the big ocean. So the bay you see right now holds a little bit of faraway mountain snow.