California zombie lake turned farmland to water. A year later, is it gone for good?

Tulare Lake was resurrected to more than 100,000 acres, bringing fear and wonder. I went to see it – and couldn’t find it

• ‘Stay out of the water’: what lurks below California’s zombie lake?

For a time last year, it was difficult to drive through a large swath of central California without running into the new shoreline of a long dormant lake.

Resurrected for the first time in decades by an epic deluge of winter rain and snow, by spring the lake covered more than 100,000 acres, stretching over cotton, tomato and pistachio fields and miles of roads.