LAKE MEAD (KTNV) — Lake Mead has declined about three feet in elevation since the start of May, and officials are prepping for a future with less water with an extended boat ramp at Hemenway Harbor.
WATCH | Geneva Zoltek explains the Lake Mead post-winter update
While seasonal dips are normal this time of year, the reservoir is about 10 feet lower than it was at this same time last year.
Check out what May 20 looked like the past six years:
As of Monday, Lake Mead's elevation clocked in at 1,059 feet, while Lake Powell to the northeast is at 3,558 feet. Both reservoirs are currently 32% full.
Here's a look at the current reservoirs across the West:
Winter totals have now been calculated, with the Upper Colorado region tracking at just 58% of the median snowpack as of Monday. This region is the source of most of Nevada's annual water supply.
Current runoff projections from that snowpack are at just 55%, continuing a troubling trend. Colorado River streamflow has shrunk by about 20% since 2000.
More decline on deck:
A new 24-month study from the Bureau of Reclamation anticipates Lake Mead water levels could drop 12 more feet towards the end of 2026.
According to the most probable scenario, in November of next year, the reservoir will see 1,046.87 feet in elevation (remember it currently sits at 1059.21 feet — representing a difference of 12.34 feet).
Although snowpack was mixed all over the region, the most recent report from the USDA on Nevada's Water Supply says the Spring Mountains and Lower Colorado Basin had a "dreadful winter" and that the Upper Colorado Basin "didn't achieve a normal peak snowpack."
"As a result, streamflow forecasts important to southern Nevada are very dissapointing." — Nevada Water Supply Outlook, USDA
"We need regulators to understand that the future is gonna look a lot drier than it does today, so what are we gonna do?" asked Kyle Roerink, Executive Director of the Great Basin Water Network, told Channel 13.
The challenges of a dwindling water supply aren't expected to improve, and officials managing the resource have a difficult task ahead of them.
"If next winter is even worse, that poses even more problems for us at Lake Mead, and so we need to be really vigilant in our conservation practices," Roerink said.
"We know that the snowpacks weren't as big as we would have liked them. And then we also know that we are experiencing earlier runoff patterns, we are experiencing drier soils, we have evaporation rates that are coming in at higher rates earlier in the season. So, we're not getting the water in the system that we used to because of all these atmospheric changes," he continued.
Nevada is one of seven states dependent on Colorado River water, and these states are currently negotiating how the resource will be managed post-2026, when current guidelines expire.
But according to Roerink, these negotiations aren't making progress.
"There is quite an impasse between water managers throughout the seven Colorado River Basin states," he said.
"Everybody's jockeying to get more water and that's why they're all fighting one another right now. That's why we are no closer to a solution than we were one year ago. One year ago, I would have made a big bet that right now we would be reviewing regulatory documents outlining what a future plan may or may not be, but right now we have nothing," Roerink said.
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