Arizona Water Shortage

Intro

I think of this like being on the Titanic and awakening to the fact that the ship is sinking. I guess that’s rude. And perhaps pessimistic, but is it? Or is it realistic? The semantics are interesting to opine about for sure, but probably not the best use of one’s time. Regardless, I might not like hearing it. I’m sure it’s annoying to hear about it again and again from some guy who just won’t shut up about it and really wants me to wake up. Who’s all of a sudden “obsessed” with life jackets and lifeboats, saying there’s not enough, as if that’s his new thing.

Still, I have to concede, I would rather he shook me awake than let me be, all peaceful in my slumber, until cold, inrushing water later awakens me way ruder.

That’s basically what I think regarding my homies in Arizona. Who I think will be ruined (at best) regarding any real estate and business ventures they have in Arizona. Which, for the United States, is practically ground zero for climate change. And if you don’t believe in climate change, river flow rates and reservoir levels are sending a clear message regardless.

Continued rapidly increasing population isn’t doing the region any favors, but for those still in harm’s way, with situational awareness, I might call these newcomers a gift horse. Allowing the situationally aware to still sell their doomed properties for a pretty penny and set up elsewhere with style and dignity before everyone knows and there’s a mass exodus cratering home values. And won’t those newcomers feel dumb? It’s probably best not to think about them and just consider this one of those Darwinian moments.

Anyway, feel free to ask me about my aspirational eco-village. I’ve got the land (157 acres) already, in one of the few places where global warming is seeming to make the weather better.

Preliminary facts worth knowing

• In the links, all reservoir levels are presented as surface level above sea level. For example, if it says Lake Powell’s water level is 3526 feet, that’s not how deep the water is. Rather, that’s how high the water is above sea level. Lake Powell hits minimum power pool (the depth at which the electric generators stop working) at 3490 feet. Lake Powell hits its official dead pool at 3370 feet.

• Lake Mead’s minimum power pool is 950 feet, and dead pool is 895.
• Both of these reservoirs are filled canyons, which means they are V-shaped. Such that there was a lot more water in every foot of depth at the top of the V when the reservoir was full than now that they are near their bottoms. So each remaining foot of depth contains ever less water than the last, and for equal amounts of water delivered downstream, the lake levels drop ever faster.

Full Lower Colorado Water Supply

The Lower Colorado Water Supply Report (updated Mondays) gives the best overall snapshot of the lower Colorado River. It gives a full picture report of the Southwest’s primary reservoirs, most notably Lakes Mead and Powell.

Usually, in this report that comes out every Monday, I look at Total System Capacity. Furthermore, Lake Powell and Lake Mead Capacity.

Lake Powell, generally the most informative

Lake Powell Water Database and Levels (daily updates). Both of these sites are good for understanding the local effects of global warming and aridification.

The database link has a graph of water levels over the prior year, but it’s the tables below the graph that are especially revealing. They include inflows (what’s truly coming down the Colorado River)…

…vs. what’s being let out. The flow data is given in comparison to various averages, such as since the year 2000, since Powell was filled in 1980, and since the dam was completed in 1966. Crucially, current inflows are way less than all averages, even since the year 2000, when the “megadrought” is said to have started. So current conditions are way worse than the already megadrought, and you can see that the drought conditions are way worse than normal. It’s worth considering that this drought seems the result of human-caused global warming and thus is only expected to get worse and not “return to normal” in any extant lifetimes.

The levels link presents much of the same data in a more visual format over recent years, showing where the lake levels are today in comparison to the last two years. If you hit the checkboxes beneath, you can add three additional years. In doing so, you can see that, aside from the good water year of 2023, things are revisiting the record lows of 2022. In fact, it is declining at an even faster rate. Below the graph it says “change since yesterday,” usually with a down arrow in decimals of a foot. Every 0.08 feet is an inch, and I’ve seen the lakes drop as much as 4 inches in a day.

Lake Mead Specific (updated daily)

Lake Mead Water Data (U.S. Bureau of Reclamation) and Levels. For now I would consider these sites less important from an understanding perspective. Particularly the water data, as about 85% of the water making it into Lake Mead is simply what’s released from Lake Powell. And therefore what’s incoming is not as true a measure of what Mother Nature is sending down the pipe per recent rain and snowfall. However, as Powell is approaching its now “effective dead pool” and is ever less able to buffer Lake Mead, Mead’s flow rates and levels are becoming more relevant. From a survival/real estate value perspective, Lake Mead water levels are crucial.

To look at Lake Mead alone could give a false impression of assurance, however bleak, as Mead’s “percent full” is quite low (32% last time I checked). With Powell nearing dead pool, Mead won’t be propped up for long.

I would expect both lakes to drop off in tandem, given Powell’s levels have little more to give up, and both lakes residual water heights are at the bottom of the V, so to speak. I do read that they’re sending water again from Flaming Gorge in Wyoming, so with the above links, we can see how much effect that will have.

The Levels links for both Powell and Mead, when scrolled down, display the U.S. Drought Monitor. Which, for as long as I have watched (since 2019), has not looked good for the entire Southwestern United States. It’s weird that I lived in Arizona through 20 years of a megadrought and heard nothing of it. I guess talking about it is bad for business.

Flaming Gorge

Since reading a few weeks back that the Bureau of Reclamation is sending water again from Flaming Gorge in Wyoming/Utah, I did notice inflows into Powell were on the rise. So today (May 8, 2026), I thought to look up where Flaming Gorge was.

The Flaming Gorge Dam is in northern Utah and dams the Green River, with some, if not the bulk, of the reservoir being in the Green River valley across the border in Wyoming. When released, water continues down the Green River and joins the Colorado River in what’s called the confluence in Canyonlands National Park in Utah.

Flaming Gorge Dam is 450 river miles from Lake Powell, taking the water 4-5 days to arrive. I looked to see if my favored sources of daily updates covered the flows and levels of the Flaming Gorge Reservoir, and here we are.

The Flaming Gorge Water Data link shows detailed flow rates over time, in and out, so you can see that large recent releases of water to Lake Powell are not sustainable. The Flaming Gorge Water Levels link gives the better visualization of water levels over the last five years.

Snowpack (updated daily)

Upper Colorado River Basin Snowpack (daily updates). I just became aware of this site [April 2026], and it gives more context and forewarning.

Overwhelmingly, this is where the Colorado River water comes from. What you see, so far in the spring of 2026, is that there wasn’t very much snow accumulation to begin with. But with the record heat levels in the Southwest, what little snow there was is all but gone in mid-April, when snow levels should be at their highest. With Lake Powell re-approaching record low levels, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see how the rest of 2026 will play out.

Also looking at 2026 snowpack being the worst in the past 10 years and well below the 10-year average. That average was the megadrought average.

Salt/Verde River Specific (updated daily)

Salt and Verde River Data (Salt River Project)

Until recently the Salt and Verde River flow rates and reservoir levels have held up, per my recollected observations, so I hadn’t given them a very close look. However, this might be changing as of the past year. The above link (last time I checked) shows the total system contents to be at 55%, down from 68% a year ago.

I’m unsure if this is because of lesser precipitation or if already instigated water cuts of Arizona’s water usage of the Colorado River have only caused increased utilization and drainage of the Salt and Verde River-associated reservoirs. And increased usage of groundwater. However, increased use, lesser supply, or both (which is what I expect) lead to much the same result. Record high temperatures increasing evaporation of lake water are surely not doing the region any favors.

And about that groundwater…

It’s declining, rapidly, says NASA. But what worries me is that the image only shows how much is being lost. It doesn’t say how much is left, and I read both studies…

The 2025 study.

The 2014 study.

…that the linked image pertains to.

Both papers make for very interesting reading. The 2025 paper is like, “Look how much water was lost since we last looked,” as if it were recent. Whereas the 2014 authors were plenty alarmed by how much groundwater had already been lost. Someone tell me if I’m wrong, but I couldn’t find in either paper an estimate of how much groundwater was left. That seems an important detail. Is it that they don’t know or don’t want to say? At least with lake water you can see it.

And as much as I hear developers having to promise 100 years of water to build and sell houses (why would they lie?), I have to think their estimates weren’t taking climate change or a megadrought (pick one) into account. So if anyone has better data on this, please let me know.

Global Surface Temperatures

Climate ReAnalyzer by the University of Maine tracks and interactively graphs world temperatures daily, with data going back to 1940, and is updated daily with a 6-day lag.

It’s a remarkable chart, making global warming over time extremely visible. The 1.5 degrees C that the world wasn’t supposed to cross per the Paris Agreement? We crossed it in 2023.

Recent News

• 2026: Lake Powell is forecast to receive 13% of its usual flows, a new report shows
• This 2024 news story goes into detail about the damage resulting from cavitation to the lower outlet tubes of Lake Powell that don’t have sufficient diameter to handle the high flow rates tested in 2023. It’s the reason the effective dead pool of Powell is at 3490-3500 feet.
• In 2021, three Colorado River Basin reservoirs will be partially drained to keep Lake Powell producing hydropower
  • Specifically Flaming Gorge, which, as mentioned above, they’re going to again in 2026, but also Blue Mesa and Navajo Reservoirs, both in Colorado.
  • Blue Mesa Water Data
    • …and Levels
  • Lake Navajo Water Data
    • and Levels

Conclusion

Call me an alarmist, but I think the charts are worth a regular look and maybe doing some simple math, from which people can imagine what’s likely coming. While estimates are to some degree uncertain, and certainly the weather is, I would ask myself:

• If next year looks like this year, what will next year’s Mead and Powell water levels look like?
• If people and businesses are still moving to Arizona, doesn’t that make things worse?
• Since all the websites I cited are in the public domain and aren’t exactly secret, how long can this reality stay out of the collective consciousness?
• What will people’s inevitable realization of that do to Arizona home and business values?
• If global warming is getting worse and not better, what does that mean for the immediate future?
• If climate change (aka global warming) is making almost everywhere worse, where might it be making things, at least in some ways, better?

Anyway, about that eco-village I’m always talking about…