Click the link to read the article on The Salt Lake Tribune website (Anastasia Hufham). Here’s an excerpt:
January 15, 2025
Snowpack levels across the Upper Colorado River Basin are close to average for this time of year, but forecasters say that might not translate to a comfortable year for the Colorado River…Moser reported that snow levels above Lake Powell, which straddles Utah’s shared state line with Arizona, are 94% of average as of Jan. 1. (“Average,” in forecasting, refers to the average precipitation between 1991 and 2020.) But forecasters currently predict that runoff into the reservoir between April and July will only be 81% of the thirty-year average. That’s a drop from the December forecast, which projected inflows of 92% of average…
Utah’s soil moisture is also below average and worse than it was this time last year. That could impact how much water reaches the Colorado River and Lake Powell, since dry soil absorbs melting snow, leaving less water to run off mountains and into reservoirs this spring. In terms of actual water, 81% of normal runoff into Lake Powell between April and July is 5.15 million acre-feet; the median runoff over the last thirty years has been 6.13 million acre-feet.