Not much river left

Back in the 1950s, the Colorado River, at least a bit of it, used to regularly reach the “Southern International Boundary” – the river bed near San Luis where it stops being the US-Mexico border and travels solely in Mexico. Even during the driest bits, when Lake Mead was dropping during the late ’50s, at least a little water slipped by.

In the mid-’80s, the great floods that nearly cost us Glen Canyon Dam and filed Mead to the brim meant that “extra” waster slopping in the system cascaded down to the Colorado River Delta. By the mid-1990s, it was less common. Today? Pretty much nada:

Colorado River Flow Into Mexico

Colorado River Flow Into Mexico

From the Yuma Sun:

“The riverbed is completely dry. There’s no flow coming down into Mexico.”

Data courtesy International Boundary and Water Commission