Click the link to read the article on the AZCentral.com website (Brandon Loomis). Here’s an excerpt:
May 16, 2024
A dry April around the Colorado River Basin melted hopes for a second-straight banner year of big runoff to swell Lake Powell’s reservoir storage, government hydrologists say. The result is a likely holding pattern for drought responses over the next two years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Water levels in Lake Powell and Lake Mead are unlikely to rise as they did after the strong snowpack that accumulated over the 2022-2023 winter, but are also unlikely to tip the Southwest into a new tier of water austerity measures. The mountain snow season started out dry, came on strong in the middle, and came to an abrupt standstill in April.
With the exception of the Colorado headwaters and Arizona’s Verde River, most areas of the seven-state watershed experienced below-average April snow and rain, according to the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center. What had generally been above-average snowpack water content throughout the region in late-winter turned toward normal or below average as meltwater started flowing toward Lake Powell.
Snowpack numbers drop during a drier April
For the water year that began in October, total precipitation in areas flowing toward Lake Powell stood at about 97% of the 30-year average this month, he said. A relatively dry month above the big reservoir had reduced an April 1 snow-water equivalent reading that was 113% of the median to just 89% by May 1. Snow-water equivalent describes the amount of water that would result from melting snow.
Reclamation, which manages Powell’s releases past Glen Canyon Dam, now predicts the water flowing toward the reservoir through the end of runoff season in July will come in at 81% of average, totaling 7.9 million acre-feet. With the agency set to release 7.48 million acre-feet toward Lake Mead this year, Powell’s storage capacity is not expected to change much. It is currently 34% full and most likely will end the year at 37%, according to the agency’s calculations…
Within Arizona, the Salt River Project’s outlook for water supplies is strong for the second year in a row. The metro Phoenix supplier said its Salt and Verde watershed reservoirs entered May at 93% of capacity.