Colorado River May Deliver Just a Third of Normal Water Supplies This Spring, Projections Show

Extended warm weather across the Colorado River basin may reduce the amount of water delivered during the spring runoff to just a third of normal, according to federal forecasters.

Modeling released late last week showed the river system on track to deliver a scant 2.3 million acre-feet to Lake Powell, one of the river system’s largest reservoirs. That’s 36% of the median of 6.4 million acre-feet recorded between 1991 and 2020. If the forecast comes true, it would be the fifth-lowest inflow to Lake Powell since the reservoir’s establishment in 1963, according to the National Weather Service’s Colorado Basin River Forecast Center.