Annual 'Let's look at the Lake Powell Snowpack' thread

[freeheel4life]

Im also no expert on the subject but theres a few thing that strike me.

1)Mead will always keep getting water because they are always going to keep the Colorado flowing. So in winter months with little melt or drought periods Mead is always getting inflow and Powell has to keep discharging. They cant just hold it when times are lean. Id be curious to find out the minimum CFS that is discharged?? Also curious minimum CFS Mead has to send down to Havasu??

2)I occasionally peek in at the site Talltige linked. Even if the lake went up 50 ft its still 80ft from full pool. Thats a ton of water to recoup with everyone trying to get a piece of it. Seems crazy. Other piece of data that blows my mind on that site is that theyve already discharged 60% of their requirement and its only April??

Going to get down there one of these days. Flaming George is on my list too.

[sandm]

mike, no expert either but have read up a little and know that cali gets the bulk of the water to the point that if mead ever hits the level that the feds step in to start managing(which is expected by 2026), nevada and arizona lose first.

we have a watersmart program here where they pay you $3/sqft to remove real grass from your property and replace with desert landscaping. lots of requirements/inspections to it and once converted the property is forever marked that it cannot have real grass again(when buying a house it's part of the disclosure process now). tons of people taking the offer from businesses to homeowners and it'll pretty much pay for rocks/shrubs and depending on your landscaper you can get a chunk of frass installed. wonder if other states are as well.

[sandm]

interesting on the wash post article. farmers using the same amount of water since the 1960's and looking at the chart of where water comes from 2001-2010 the colorado river is pretty constant minus a slight drop in 2005.
but yet I remember reading somewhere that mead water flows were set up on some "record" water years and have not had since. water users as a whole continue to take from colorado and water supplies are not able to keep up with demand set up on long ago record storage amounts.

that all certainly contributes to the current state.

reading that and others if the gov't steps in, nevada/arizona and based on that article cali residential users are going to suffer long before the farmers ever do. water will still be available but at what cost. farmers will turn to selling water shares yearly to cities vs growing crops. we all now pay more for water and crops while farmers continue to flourish. looks like I need to switch occupations

now reality is mead/powell/havasu are not going to go dry in my lifetime but selfishly don't want them to go low enough to kill boating until I retire from it.

[talltigeguy]

Im also no expert on the subject but theres a few thing that strike me.

Other piece of data that blows my mind on that site is that theyve already discharged 60% of their requirement and its only April??

Going to get down there one of these days. Flaming George is on my list too.

Remember that water years are kind of like school years. The water year 2019 ends at the end of September (I think), not Dec 31.

[boonecragun]

Larry, estimates on lake Powell peak elevation this year?

[talltigeguy]

Larry, estimates on lake Powell peak elevation this year?

2 years ago when there was similar snowpack, the lake went up 40 feet. The lake is currently about 40 feet down from where it was last year at this time. So I am expecting it to go back to where it was last year. About 3610 feet. But it depends on if they decide to let more through to Lake Mead and I do not know where they hide that information.

[D&P Powell]

https://news3lv.com/news/local/winte...d-water-levels

[little_criket]

Current rise rate is just over a 1/3 of a foot a day... Unless rise rate increases dramatically, I don’t think the cut-off will make Memorial weekend, but should make it by the end of the month. Antelope will be in June... Crazy how low it is...

[sandm]

interesting read from the media.

Bunk says, while we may not really see the water level rise in Lake Mead anytime soon, we also aren’t likely to see those dreaded water restrictions either.

interesting that since it's still below full why they don't enact some restrictions until it's full again?
I know lots of politics and water rights issues at play but take advantage of a good year and suck up the water usage until they are both pushing full capacity again.

[talltigeguy]

Current rise rate is just over a 1/3 of a foot a day... Unless rise rate increases dramatically, I don’t think the cut-off will make Memorial weekend, but should make it by the end of the month. Antelope will be in June... Crazy how low it is...

I suspect that it will be increasing by a foot a day pretty soon. It will be a race to see if the cut makes it open by the holiday. I would not lose hope yet!

[boonecragun]

Current snowpack. Still a lot of runoff to come.


28743E17-B298-4642-9904-A30B84760442.jpg

[talltigeguy]

Current snowpack. Still a lot of runoff to come.


[ATTACH]50974[/ATTACH]

The other site quotes the snowpack as 544% of normal snowpack for this time of year. Most of that snow is supposed to have melted by now. I suspect we are going to have some huge runoff now that it is heating up. This is a good setup for flooding.

[sandm]

Don't worry Tall, California will help ya out

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/15/wate...iver-plan.html

[talltigeguy]

Here we go again: April 15 is generally regarded as the date of maximum snowpack for the Colorado River which feeds Lake Powell.

Current snowpack is at 99% of normal. Dead average when compared to historical snowpack at this time of year. That will still translate to a pretty good runoff, but there are still some variables in play. Lake Powell is at 3600 feet, about 100 feet before the top of the dam and at the second highest level it has been at this time of year in the last 6 years.

Interestingly, the winter was very good for Lake Mead and it has risen 13 feet or so. It is at the highest level in 6 years by a pretty good margin. It is still very low compared to historical norms, but this winter turned out to be a pretty good year for the Colorado River Basin.

All of this information can be found here: http://lakepowell.water-data.com/

What information I am not good at finding is if they plan on letting most of the runoff down to Lake Mead or keep it in Lake Powell. Water managers have likely buried that information somewhere on the BLM website and if anyone can find it, it would be nice to know.

It sure would be great if they would let Powell rise enough to make the Castle Rock cutoff a wide freeway instead of a long channel. I hate driving my houseboat through there, especially when an idiot with a Mastercraft tied to the SIDE of the houseboat comes through the other direction. He just made his 16 foot wide houseboat into a 24 foot wide behemoth houseboat. For those that have not been there, the cut is a man made cut in the sandstone bottom about 40 feet wide and several hundred yards long. It cuts 10+ miles off of the trip to get further up the lake. 10 miles can be a long ways in a houseboat.

[sandm]

seen quite a bit on this over the last 6 months and looks like a bunch of mead's increase is due to some voluntary cutbacks last summer AND there's some mandatory things coming this year. this article pretty much sums it up.
if I was a betting man I would THINK that any savings in water will end up in mead not powell as seems most of the water users look to mead as the litmus for how the colorado water supply is doing and the agreements on where to leave 'extra' water point to mead not powell.
If I were in the drivers seat, would think powell would be the better place to let it sit as it's not as hot from an evaporation standpoint and keeps the water further upstream to benefit all users not just those in mead but politics will prevail.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news...te/4359571002/