Lake Powell at 23% Capacity as Colorado River Runoff Projected at Record Low

A newly released time-lapse of Lake Powell highlights more than a decade of falling water levels, using imagery captured by NOAA’s JPSS satellites between 2012 and 2026. The footage shows the lake’s shorelines gradually receding amid persistent drought on the Colorado River, where Lake Powell lies.

Federal forecasters project the reservoir will receive only 13 percent of its typical April-to-July runoff this year.

This marks the lowest on record since Lake Powell’s creation in 1963. NOAA stated that this year’s spring and summer runoff into the lake is projected to be the lowest ever recorded, according to NOAA’s Colorado Basin River Forecast Center. As of Sunday, Lake Powell was 23 percent full, with storage levels at 39 percent of average for the date, according to USBR data.

Federal water managers had already cautioned that sinking reservoir levels could imperil hydropower production at Glen Canyon Dam, whose turbines are fed by water from the lake. Officials announced plans last month to release water from the upstream Flaming Gorge Reservoir while reducing downstream releases to Lake Mead.

The water-release plan was intended to prevent Lake Powell from dropping to critical thresholds.

The system also includes Lake Mead, the country’s largest reservoir. S. Bureau of Reclamation attributed the situation to the combination of the lowest snowpack on record and record-breaking March heat.

Newsweek reported that the move followed what the bureau called the combination of those two factors, which worsened drought conditions across the basin. The Colorado River has been grappling with long-term drought. The Colorado River irrigates more than 5 million acres of farmland and supplies water to 40 million people across the West.

It serves seven basin states: Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico in the Upper Basin; Arizona, California and Nevada in the Lower Basin, as well as Mexico. The seven basin states have been working to negotiate new water-sharing agreements to replace those due to expire this year.

Arizona, California and Nevada proposed a plan under which the three states would jointly cut their water use by as much as 1 million acre-feet a year through 2028.

5 million acre-feet in reductions that had already been proposed among the three states and Mexico, Newsweek previously reported. The proposal includes immediate reductions of roughly 700,000 acre-feet annually, to be shared between the states. It also allows for the possibility of an additional 300,000 acre-feet of voluntary cuts, to be supported by federal drought funding provided through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.

The Lower Basin states put forward the plan to federal officials as a stopgap while broader talks continue.