UPDATE: Colorado River Basin Storage Continues Slide Toward System Crash

This new report considers two plausible scenarios for the next year of snowpack and consumptive use in the Colorado Basin to determine the short-term impacts on reservoir storage. The report demonstrates that if the Basin experiences another dry year accessible water supplies in Lake Powell and Lake Mead would be mostly depleted, even if consumptive uses and losses are at or near historic lows. But the reservoirs are currently so low a year of heavy snowpack would provide only about two years of cushion – unless the region finds a way to use significantly less water than is currently contemplated.