Video of a man-made spillway in the Lake Berryessa reservoir is shared as visuals of a giant natural whirlpool - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
May 24, 2022
A video is being shared on social media claiming it as the visuals of a giant whirlpool formed inside a river or a lake. Several social media users have shared this video describing it as a natural phenomenon caused by the changes in climate. Those posts can be seen here and here. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video of a giant whirlpool formed inside a river.
Fact: The video shared in the post shows the giant ‘Glory Hole’, a man-made spillway constructed inside the Lake Berryessa in California. The spillway was constructed to drain the excess water in the reservoir during an overflow. The video does not show a natural whirlpool. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
On reverse image search of the screenshots in the video, a video with similar visuals was found in an article published by ‘The Sun’ on 03 March 2018. This article reported it as the visuals of the giant ‘Glory Hole’, a man-made spillway constructed inside the Lake Berryessa in California.
When we searched for further details of this giant ‘Glory Hole’, we found that the spillway was constructed in 1957 as an alternative to the more common chute. Glory Hole, a 200 feet deep circular pipe with a diameter of 72 feet, will take in water like a drain once the reservoir is overcapacity. This spillway is used to control the overflow of the water in Lake Berryessa. A few other videos showing the water drain visuals of ‘Glory Hole’ can be seen here and here.
To sum it up, video of a man-made spillway inside California’s Lake Berryessa was shared as the visuals of a giant natural whirlpool.