Lake Powell will cease to exist if one group’s plan to restore Glen Canyon as the “heart of the Colorado River” comes to fruition.
An above-average snowfall and excessive precipitation in the spring have bolstered the water levels at Lake Powell and Lake Mead, but Glen Canyon Institute Executive Director Eric Balken told Newsweek that he doubts that Lake Mead will ever return to full capacity
In early 2023, Lake Powell hit a record low — sitting at only about 22% capacity. As of late July, those levels were nearly double. Utah’s Colorado River Commissioner Gene Shawcroft said the ailing reservoir had risen 65 feet from the record spring runoff. Those inflows lifted the water levels to about 40% capacity.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation laid down the planning process on the development of post-2026 operational guidelines and strategies for Lake Powell and Lake Mead during a podcast Tuesday.
Some of the reservoir and water management documents and agreements that govern the operation of the Colorado River basin will expire in 2026, so the planning process has begun to guide the way for a resource that 40 million people in the U.S — and more in northern Mexico — depend on.
When last we visited, Lake Mead sat at elevation 1,054.28 feet above sea level. It’s now at 1,058.34, which is up ~13 feet from when I took the above photo last December. I hope they moved those chairs. The good news is the current forecast calling for the combined storage of Lake Mead and Lake Powell to end the water year up nearly 5 million acre feet from a year ago. The bad news is that total identifiable water use reductions in this year of chaotic crisis fire drill total just 1.2 million acre feet, according to the Bureau of Reclamation’s July 14, 2023 forecast.
An extreme heat wave in the Southwest could pose a risk to Lake Powell’s water levels, which have been steadily increasing all summer.
After an extended drought period, Lake Powell, which is in Utah and Arizona, reached drastically low levels last summer, but levels began rising in earnest in April after California experienced a wet winter. The above-average snowfall in the mountains led to an increased snowpack melt that has continued to supplement Lake Powell, as well as Lake Mead in Arizona and Nevada, this summer.
Lake Mead has risen more than 3 feet over the past month, and nearly 13 feet since Jan. 1.
The lake, which supplies 90% of the water used in the Las Vegas valley, is bucking the trend of the past five years. Lake Mead typically drops beginning around April, following a seasonal pattern.
As snow melts upstream in the Upper Colorado River Basin, water is held back in dams all along the way to prepare for higher consumption during the hot summer months. Water eventually reaches Lake Powell before flowing through the Grand Canyon and into Lake Mead.
A year after Lake Mead dropped to a historic low, the U.S. government’s Department of Interior and Bureau of Reclamation have announced the beginning of the process to develop a new plan to deal with the changing water levels in reservoirs along the Colorado River. To do this it is setting up three public input meetings online where people can voice ideas and concerns.
The 2022–2023 snow season started off relatively active across the West, with a few modest storms bringing snow accumulations to the mountains in early November.
By the start of December, snow water equivalent (SWE) across much of the region was above normal. Starting in early December, several storm cycles brought moisture-laden families of atmospheric rivers to the West Coast. Most of the landfalls occurred in California. The strongest series of storms occurred steadily from December 27 through January 17.
By the end of January, SNOTEL sites across much of the Sierra Nevada, Great Basin, Utah, Arizona, and western Colorado were at >150% of normal SWE. Unlike the 2021–2022 water year, in which snowfall was abundant early in winter but scarce after early January, the storm train continued with another series of strong storms across the West from late February through mid-March.
By April 1, snowpack was above normal across nearly the entire West, with few areas of snow drought. In some parts of the Sierra Nevada, Great Basin, Utah, Arizona, and western Colorado, SWE reached 200%–300% of normal and, in certain locations, set records. The northern Pacific Northwest and northwestern Montana was on the periphery of the storm track during most of winter. In these areas, snow drought developed as snowmelt began, and summer drought conditions are developing or seem likely to develop.
During the past winter, unlike many recent years, anomalously cold temperatures were persistent and widespread. November through March temperatures were among the lowest third of all years since 1895 across much of the West. Temperatures in parts of California, Nevada, Oregon, and Idaho were among the coldest ten percent. Impacts of the cold temperatures included an unusual proportion of precipitation falling as snow compared to rain, snow persisting at lower elevations for longer than usual, and little mid-winter snow melt at higher elevations.
April brought a drying and warming trend to the Southwest and above-normal precipitation and cooler temperatures to Oregon and Washington, reducing some of the snowpack deficits in the Cascade Range. However, the cool and wet conditions in the Pacific Northwest were short-lived. Throughout May and into early June, temperatures across the Pacific Northwest and northern Rocky Mountains were above normal, with record warmth in parts of northern Oregon, Washington, northern Idaho, and northwestern Montana. The warm temperatures combined with relatively dry conditions have led to rapid snow loss across the region, and snow has melted one to three weeks early at many SNOTEL stations (70 sites in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana melted out more than a week early).
May snowmelt reached record highs across many western regions, not just the Pacific Northwest. However, in terms of drought development, the early snowmelt was only problematic for parts of the Pacific Northwest and northern Rocky Mountains, where snowpack at the beginning of May was near normal or below normal (unlike the near-record snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, Utah, and western Colorado). The rapid snow loss, low winter precipitation, and forecasted below-normal summer runoff have renewed concerns about drought in the Pacific Northwest, with abnormal dryness (D0) and moderate drought (D1) reappearing in portions of western Washington and Oregon over the past three weeks.
Currently, snowpack persists at higher elevations throughout the West and remains remarkably deep for mid-June in parts of the Sierra Nevada and southern Cascade Range. A few notable locations include Leavitt Lake in the central Sierra Nevada, with 92 inches of SWE remaining as of June 12; Lower Lassen Peak in the southern Cascade Range, with 82 inches of SWE remaining; and Mount Rose Ski Area near Lake Tahoe, with 43 inches of SWE remaining.
For California, the Great Basin, and the Colorado River Basin, the cool, wet, and snowy year brought major drought relief after three consecutive dry years. Observed water year runoff in these regions was above normal through early June, and the forecasts indicate above-normal flows persisting throughout summer.
Major reservoirs, with the exception of Lakes Powell and Mead, have already filled or are expected to fill by the end of summer. This year was still beneficial for Lakes Powell and Mead, the two largest reservoirs in the country, but it will take much more than one wet year to refill these reservoirs after over 20 years of falling water levels. The June 12th update from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation indicated that Lake Powell was at 37% of capacity and Lake Mead was at 31% of capacity, with forecasted April–July inflows into Powell at 167% of normal.
(Editor’s Note: NIDIS and its partners launched this snow drought effort in 2018 to provide data, maps, and tools for monitoring snow drought and its impacts as well as communicating the status of snow drought across the United States, including Alaska. Thank you to our partners for your continued support of this effort and review of these updates. For more information contact: Daniel McEvoy, Western Regional Climate Center, Amanda Sheffield, NOAA/NIDIS California-Nevada Regional Drought Information Coordinator, and Britt Parker, NOAA/NIDIS Pacific Northwest Regional Drought Information Coordinator: www.drought.gov/drought-status-updates/water-year-2023-snow-drought-conditions-summary-and-impacts-west-2023-06-15)
Representatives from more than a dozen Indigenous tribes spoke at a CU Boulder law conference last week about their interests in the Colorado River from each of their perspectives.
Many of the prominent state and federal officials who manage the water attended the conference. But as they and other water authorities prepare to negotiate the river’s future, it’s unclear how tribes will participate, to what degree tribes will be treated as equal sovereigns, and how their desire to use all the water they legally have rights to will be considered.
The biggest rivers in the U.S. are the lifeblood of the regions they flow through. They provide drinking water, irrigation for agricultural lands and a habitat where important ecosystems can thrive.
But as climate change worsens, some of the nation’s most important rivers are in serious trouble because of the drought gripping several regions.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
