Water forecast is bleak for major Southwest reservoir

DENVER — One of the most important reservoirs in the Southwestern U.S. will likely collect less than half its normal amount of spring runoff this year because of a warm, dry winter across much of the region, forecasters said Wednesday. Lake Powell, which straddles Utah and Arizona, is expected to get 47 percent of its average inflow because of scant snow in the mountains that feed the Colorado River,

said Greg Smith, a hydrologist with the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Smith said there is only a 10 percent chance that enough mountain snow will fall during the rest of the winter and spring to bring inflows back to average. It was the seventh-worst forecast for Lake Powell in 54 years.

“Things are looking pretty grim” along some of the tributaries that feed the Colorado River, Smith said during an online

conference on the spring outlook for Lake Powell.

Powell, along with Lake Mead on the Nevada-Arizona border, helps ensure the Colorado River system has enough water to get through dry years.

The river supplies water to about 40 million people and 6,300 square miles of farmland in seven states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

The river also serves cities and farms in northwest Mexico.