2002 (orange) and 2026 (blue) for the snow stations above Lake Powell
Via Eric Kuhn, the snowpack above Lake Powell is miserable. 2002 was the lowest year on record for unregulated April-July inflow into Lake Powell. This year is starting off even worse.
Snowpack and runoff are two different things
24 years ago, there were way more fires and way less trees
How many months this year will have zero natural flow into Lake Powell?
Thank you for these posts. Could you provide a link to the source for this graph?
Devin – Thanks for interest. I’m not sure I can deep link directly, it’s from the CBRFC – https://www.cbrfc.noaa.gov/lmap/lmap.php – “snow” pulldown menu on the home page, you want “snow groups.”
2002 snowpack and runoff were terrible on the Rio Grande and San Juan. Think the San Juan Chama Project diverted about 6,000 acre-feet into the Rio Grande that year (normal would be between 80,0000 and 120,000 acre-feet. Heck, for Colorado on the mainstem Rio Grande, we had to negotiate a new delivery by Colorado to New Mexico because the actual inflow that year was lower than any contemplated in the Rio Grande Compact. Only thing that allowed us to manage thru the year was releases of water stored in previous years. If this dryness continues, with no storage to speak of, 2026 will be a very difficult year of water management/flows and, unfortunately, possibly fires.