Water levels have dropped to near-record lows in two major Western reservoirs due in part to “unprecedented” snow-related drought, a top NOAA official said Wednesday.
Lake Mead and Lake Powell, which supply about 40 million people with water and are fed by the Colorado River, were just 28 percent and 23 percent full on July 3. Both levels are near the record lows recorded in 2022, when Lake Mead fell to 27 percent capacity and Lake Powell dropped to 22 percent.
“The West has experienced an unprecedented amount of snow drought,” NOAA Deputy Administrator Tim Petty said at an agency drought briefing Wednesday. “This has a direct impact on spring, summer and fall” water supplies.
Melting snow typically runs off into streams and recharges reservoirs in the spring. But runoff levels across much of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada, as well as large swaths of Oregon, Idaho and Wyoming, fell below 50 percent of their average spring levels between April and June.
