Click the link to read the article on the InkStain website (John Fleck):
The Feb.1 numbers from the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center look good – Lake Powell inflow 1.4 million acre feet above the median.
We’ve got a lot of winter left, so definitely too early to make big plans to, for example, cut Colorado River water use deeply to avoid deadpool or, alternatively, decide that we don’t need to cut Colorado River water use deeply to avoid deadpool.
This morning’s @jfleck rabbit hole contained the numbers for the last decade and a bit from the CBRFC.
On average, the forecast is pretty much spot on. But the distribution is large. For the Polyannas in the audience, in 2019 actual flow into Lake Powell was 5 million acre feet above the Feb. 1 forecast. For the Cassandras, in 2012 it dropped by 3.1 million acre feet.
In eight of the last dozen years, actual flow was lower than the Feb. 1 forecast. In the other four, it was higher.
| year | Feb. 1 forecast | final | change |
| 2011 | 9,000 | 11,500 | 2,500 |
| 2012 | 5,050 | 1,910 | -3,140 |
| 2013 | 3,850 | 2,560 | -1,290 |
| 2014 | 7,250 | 6,920 | -330 |
| 2015 | 5,200 | 6,710 | 1,510 |
| 2016 | 6,400 | 6,630 | 230 |
| 2017 | 9,600 | 8,170 | -1,430 |
| 2018 | 3,900 | 2,600 | -1,300 |
| 2019 | 5,300 | 10,400 | 5,100 |
| 2020 | 5,700 | 3,760 | -1,940 |
| 2021 | 3,300 | 1,850 | -1,450 |
| 2022 | 5,000 | 3,750 | -1,250 |
| mean | 5,796 | 5,563 | -233 |
| median | 5,250 | 5,195 | -1,270 |
The CBRFC folks will be explaining the current state of the basin at their monthly forecast webinar this morning (Feb. 7, 2023, 10 a.m. MT, registration stuff here.)
As always, a huge thanks to Inkstain’s supporters, if you find this stuff useful you can help support the blog here.