Tuesday February 11, 2025
Newsweek —
Lake Mead and Lake Powell could be in for a tough year, with the latest estimates of Colorado’s snowpack providing underwhelming reading.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Water and Climate Center, the snowpack in Upper Colorado River Basin—the primary source of flows into Mead and Powell—is presently sitting at just 83 percent of the historic median for this time of year.
This is a significant decrease since January, when numbers were closer to 95 percent, and a drop of 2 percent in the last week alone.
“Exceptionally dry conditions in much of the West in January were caused by a stationary high pressure system in the northeastern Pacific Ocean, preventing weather fronts from passing through,” the National Integrated Drought Information System said in a statement.
“The worst snow drought conditions persist throughout Arizona, New Mexico, the southern Sierra Nevada, southwestern Utah, and parts of southwestern Colorado, where little precipitation has fallen in the past two months.”