For Mead, Time’s Up
Posted on | April 7, 2010 | 5 Comments
April 1 Lake Powell inflow forecast, courtesy Colorado Basin River Forecast Center
With the Colorado River forecasts out this week, I’m ready to call it: there won’t be enough water in the river for an extra water release this year from Lake Powell to help bolster the levels in the shrinking Lake Mead. Those declining red dots, month by month in the graph above, tell the story.
The official word won’t come until Friday at the earliest, when the Bureau of Reclamation releases its April “24-month study”. But the forecast data from the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center shows a median inflow into Lake Powell of just 63 percent of normal for the April-July period.
Under the river’s operating rules, if there is extra water in Lake Powell, it can be released downstream to bolster levels in Lake Mead. But 63 percent doesn’t leave any extra. The decision on this year’s releases is done now, based on the best forecast of what Powell’s levels will be at on Sept. 30.
As I’ve written previously, this means that come June, Lake Mead could unequivocally drop to its lowest levels since the it was first filled in the 1930s. I think I’ll plan a trip out that way, to see it for myself.
Related posts:
- Odds of Extra Water for Mead Drop
- How Low Can Mead Go? Let’s Talk Come June
- Chances of Extra Water for Mead Diminish
- Chances of Extra Water for Mead Remain Low
- Colorado River: January Forecast
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Comments
5 Responses to “For Mead, Time’s Up”
April 7th, 2010 @ 10:29 pm
John: Thanks for staying on top of this huge story. I get the sense that few people are paying attention to what seems like a looming epochal event.
April 8th, 2010 @ 7:00 pm
I was chatting recently with Bill Patzert, the JPL oceanographer who first predicted long term drought for the Colorado, and he was saying exactly the same thing about June and Mead.
April 9th, 2010 @ 4:15 pm
[...] I know this is my obsession, and may be boring you, but I think it’s historic. Plus, Yulsman is egging me on.) Category: Colorado River, [...]
April 9th, 2010 @ 5:49 pm
Emily -
I’ve always thought that it was Linda Nash and Peter Gleick, back in 1991, who first predicted it (Sensitivity of streamflow in the Colorado Basin to climatic changes, Journal of Hydrology
Volume 125, Issues 3-4, July 1991, Pages 221-241). Though in that paper they cite a bunch of even earlier work that pointed in the same direction.
May 7th, 2010 @ 9:41 pm
[...] reminder that we’re already past the point of no return in terms of downstream releases from Lake Powell through the Grand Canyon into Lake Mead. The low [...]