Water levels in Lake Powell dropped to a new record low on Tuesday. By, What We Know, And What You Can Do To Help. To view the 2023 progession of snowpack above Lake Powell, click on Lake Powell Snow Chart. In the main body of Lake Powell, water pooled along its eastern edge, while large expanses of dry canyon floor were visible in the west. Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. Lake Mead's water levels . n$L{Z. The lake is set to reach. Because the 2022 operations were designed to protect critical elevations at Lake Powell, Reclamation will implement Lower Elevation Balancing Tier operations in a way that continues to protect these critical elevations, or preserves the benefits of the 2022 operations to protect Lake Powell, in water year 2023. Click for Details, Current Snowpack Conditions for Upper Colorado Basin. View CFS Last 14 Measurements Lake Powell is down -1.03 feet over these measurements Averages for February 27th Last 10 February 27th's data records We maintain a strict editorial firewall between our funders and our journalism. This is the big warning bell.. At the same time, power producers are gearing up to craft a fallback plan for extending hydropower production at Glen Canyon Dam if water levels continue to fall. google_color_link = "0000FF"; KNAU's Melissa Sevigny reports. Our editorial policy and donor list can be viewed atwateredco.org. Lake Powell has fallen victim to excessive water use as a 20-year drought parches the region. The annual release volume from Lake Powell during water year 2023 will be 7.77 maf under the Lower Elevation Balancing Tier and will balance the contents between Powell and Mead with annual release volumes from Glen Canyon Dam between 7.00 maf and 9.50 maf as determined under Section 6.D.1 and 7.D of the Interim Guidelines as determined by the Department of the Interior as described above. Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters. In March 2022, it fell below a critical level of 3,525 feet above sea levelthe lake's target elevation. As of Wednesday, the water level was 3,524.22 feet. To view the most current reservoir elevation projections, click on: Lake Powell Elevation Projections. The Upper Basin reservoirs have already provided 161,000 acre-feet of water pursuant to the imminent need provision of the Drought Response Operations Agreement, including 36,000 acre-feet from Blue Mesa Reservoir in Colorado. Wednesday snow and wind will be heavy at times leading to difficult if not impossible travel. The last couple months have steadied out a little bit, Cody Moser, a senior hydrologist with NOAA forecast center, said during a recent web briefing to review the most recent report. (Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun), How Denver is spending the $41M from the Broncos sale, (720) 263-2338 Call, text, Signal or WhatsApp, Proudly powered by Newspack by Automattic. But in a statement, she said, The Upper Basin States are working collaboratively with the Bureau of Reclamation to draft a 2022 Drought Response Operations Plan outlining potential releases from Upper Basin reservoirs in an effort to protect critical elevations at Lake Powell. google_color_text = "000000"; The unregulated inflow during the 2000-2022 period has ranged from a low of 2.64 maf (28 percent of average) in water year 2002 to a high of 15.97 maf (166 percent of average) in water year 2011. At the west end of Narrow Canyon, the Dirty Devil River joins the lake from the north. System emergencies occur fairly infrequently and typically require small responses from Glen Canyon Dam. SW Satellite Weather Soil moisture conditions have improved over the last year across most of Colorados Western Slope, but thats not necessarily saying much because of how bad soil moisture conditions were heading into last years snowmelt runoff season, Moser said. That spring runoff is critical to irrigated agriculture, domestic water supplies, and the recreation industry in Colorado and the West. water-data.com Lake Powell Water Database. 175 0 obj <>/Filter/FlateDecode/ID[<68753438768B134985CC80C922059B30>]/Index[159 34]/Info 158 0 R/Length 84/Prev 199590/Root 160 0 R/Size 193/Type/XRef/W[1 2 1]>>stream These projections are critical for planning for an increasingly dry future in the Colorado River Basin, but a new paper from Utah State University says the model may still underestimate the risk. Releases from Glen Canyon Dam can also fluctuate beyond scheduled releases when called upon to respond to unscheduled power outages or power system emergencies. Water managers, who . SW Satellite Weather A century of river flow records combined with an additional four to five centuries of tree-ring data show that the droughts over the past two decades were not unusual; longer and more severe droughts are a regular part of the climate variability in that part of the continent. Committee on the Scientific Bases of Colorado River Basin Water Management, National Research Council. Lake Powell, Printable Version WEco is funded by multiple donors. 159 0 obj <> endobj She can be reached at 720-398-6474, via email atjerd@wateredco.orgor @jerd_smith. The deep, narrow, meandering reservoir extends upstream into southern Utah. endstream endobj 160 0 obj <>/Metadata 41 0 R/Pages 157 0 R/StructTreeRoot 59 0 R/Type/Catalog/ViewerPreferences 177 0 R>> endobj 161 0 obj <>/MediaBox[0 0 792 612]/Parent 157 0 R/Resources<>/Font<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageB/ImageC/ImageI]/XObject<>>>/Rotate 0/StructParents 0/Tabs/S/Type/Page>> endobj 162 0 obj <>stream The most recent data is from Monday, February 27th, 2023. The forecast is changing daily and there are still a lot of variables, said Lisa Meiman, a spokeswoman for WAPA. It took decades for Lake Powell to reach catastrophically low levels, and according to one expert . Hourly releases during February 2023 will fluctuate from a low of approximately 5,797 cfs during the early morning hours to a high of 10,091 cfs during the afternoon and evening hours. swE{,,;o0U|+/ :u7j@;pGh00gr\j30sAD+ ON 9 Click below for water level and accessibity updates about the launch ramps and services near you. To view the current inflow forecast relative to past inflows, click on Lake Powell Inflow Forecast. He said the soil moisture conditions were still well below normal across western Colorado, particularly in the southwest part of the state. Scientists say the current drought is the driest on record in the last twelve hundred years. The NOAA forecast center begins releasing monthly water supply forecasts for the Colorado River Basin in December. 2018 brought some relief after a wet winter. The lake level began to rebound; only the 2008 image appeared to deviate from the trend toward rising water levels. But the declining water already has drained some of the fun, he said. GCC is the official nonprofit partner of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area & Rainbow Bridge National Monument. Hydrologists recently updated the model that forecasts the level of Lake Powell. :pNB/gb2D0p6Ecb :qD_q7wE42TOOSW:Oa^(-]p7y|iZ.8uq:}1y3bJ]!G ) ytRdJp2 +[|}QpEU}V'k{yeKud"xl_-x lJ!UZ`,n!\3{dcb On April 8, Reclamation announced it would likely keep more water in Lake Powell, reducing releases from the planned 7.5 million acre-feet to 7 million acre-feet, a move that could trigger emergency water cutbacks in Arizona, California and Nevada. Precipitation was better, but still slightly below normal in the Upper Colorado River Basin. Under a Drought Contingency Plan adopted in 2019, approximately 500 thousand acre-feet (kaf) of water will come from Flaming Gorge Reservoir, located approximately 455 river miles upstream of Lake Powell. inflow forecast for water year 2022 by approximately 2.2 million acre-feet from . In July 2022, the lake reached a historic low of 1,040 feet above sea level. The Colorado River cuts through dry land that was once covered by Lake Powell on September 7, 2022, near Hite, Utah. Fish & Wildlife Service Endangered Species Success Stories. (Due to the angle of sunlight, this image may cause an optical illusion known as relief inversion.). Cheap sewer pipe repairs can push toxic fumes into homes and schools heres Hard water: In these metro neighborhoods, few drink the tap water. New 1991-2020 Averages being used this year. By Anna Skinner On 1/18/23 at 4:42 PM EST. Across the region, water utilities are in high-alert mode, preparing for another dry year on the Colorado River and holding hope that the Upper Basin reservoirs can be protected as long as possible from large-scale drought releases. LAKE POWELL, Utah Lake Powell water levels continue to drop, and a new report released by the Bureau of Reclamation projects the possibility America's . According to Jay Lund, vice director for the Center for Watershed Sciences and a professor at the University of California, the long-term average use in the lower Colorado River Basin exceeds the long-term flow of water, meaning the only solution is to "substantially reduce water use" in the basin. Some Arizona cities have implemented drought management plans to conserve water, but the area continues to use water at a rate that negates Lake Powell's recovery. According to the Bureau of Reclamation's website (on March 22, 2022), Lake The Colorado Sun is a journalist-owned, award-winning news outlet based in Denver that strives to cover all of Colorado so that our state our community can better understand itself. The forecast estimated that the amount of water that will flow into Lake Powell this spring and summer will be about 59% of average, based on 30 years of data from 1991 to 2020. As a news piece, this article cites verifiable, third-party sources which have all been thoroughly fact-checked and deemed credible by the Newsroom in accordance with the Civil Constitution. The probable maximum inflow scenario reflects a wet hydrologic condition which statistically would be exceeded 10 percent of the time. The basin states, in a response letter, expressed concern that the water level of Lake Powell would decline below critical elevations, making the dam inoperable. The model is based on weather conditions over a thirty-year span. There is a 10 percent chance that inflows could be higher than the current maximum probable forecast and a 10 percent chance that inflows could be lower than the minimum probable forecast. These projections are critical for planning for an increasingly dry future in the Colorado River Basin, but a new paper from Utah State University says the model may still underestimate the risk. 8_9dyB`n`` +30|@,6a # Water supply forecasts take into consideration present hydrometeorological conditions and use Antelope Point Launch Ramp Bullfrog Main Launch Ramp Powell was last within 2" of this elevation on Feb 11, 2023 There are currently 1,757,155,460,140 gallons of water in Lake Powell! The probable minimum and probable maximum model runs are conducted simultaneously in January, April, August, and October, or when necessary to incorporate changing conditions. Sunlight brightens plateaus and southeast-facing slopes, casting shadows on the northern and western faces of the rugged landscape. The Water Desks mission isto increase the volume, depth and power of journalismconnected to Western water issues. 0.523 maf in Lake Powell from December 2022 through April 2023. %%EOF Additionally, there are possible inflow scenarios that would result in reservoir elevations falling outside the ranges indicated in these reports. Projections of end of water year 2023 elevation using the February minimum and January maximum inflow forecast results are 3,544.04 feet and 3,582.24 feet, respectively. google_ad_format = "160x600_as"; Up to 80 percent of water use in the basin is for agricultural purposes, but urban water conservation serves an important purpose, too. It can store about five times the average annual flow. Few expected to ever see this drop in hydropower production, let alone consider what to do if Glen Canyon were to cease electricity production entirely. 15 Day Weather Forecast SW Satellite Weather SW Water Vapor Lake Powell is down 6.18 feet from one year ago. 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