Lake Mead Shrivels

Now, what is happening to Lake Mead is proof that global warming is for real.

 

You are kidding right?

 

Part of the reason for this is that we've started allowing more water to go to Mexico. Part is the drought.

http://america.aljazeera.com/articl...fe-back-to-colorado-rivers-parched-delta.html

 

Lake Powell, which is upstream of and releases water into Lake Mead, is near its lowest recorded water levels. It is almost 50% below capacity. That pretty much means just not enough rain and snowfall in the Rockies for the last 15 years.

Lake Powell used to be the most magnificent spot on the planet.

 

please explain

 

I agree, but it's exacerbated by the fact that in the early part of the drought, we weren't allowing ANY water to get to the Gulf of California from the Colorado river. We started doing that in the last two years. This accelerated the water loss.

 

how can that be, that would not be global warming. LOL

 

Snow in the Spring Mountains of southern Nevada today. Severe hail yesterday after - have pictures but they're not uploading properly here.

 

I don't know the full particulars on that, but I believe we had been taking greater and greater percentages of Mexico's allocation every year anyway, and the water we had been allowing into Mexico was becoming ever more salinated. It was too salty for Mexico to do anything with and just ended up in the Gulf. We did build a de-sal plant, but the water became a trickle.

 

The water from the Colorado that was going into Mexico was run off from farms that was diverted away from the river bed into another basin that has become a sort of accidental wildlife refuge and recreational water way. I recently saw a show on PBS about the area, including the water releases. It was quite interesting.

Anyway, climatologists who have been studying the area are seriously concerned because evidence from the last few decades seems to indicate that the US south west has already entered one of its long term drought phases. In the past these have lasted anywhere from 60-400 years. An El-Nino is just a drop in the bucket in this scenario. After years of drought most of the heavy rains it will bring will just run across the surface and not recharge the high aquifers. With the current warming even record high snow falls in the mountains will not persist long enough to charge the deep valley aquifers of the rivers they feed.

The mid latitude global desert is moving north and the US Southwest is right in its path.

 

according to the meteorologists here in Chicago the snow fall is the most in the upper northwest in 12 years.

 

Lake Mead almost gone...

With Extended Drought, Biggest US Reservoir at Lowest Level Ever
May 30, 2016 - The 16-year drought in parts of the western United States has dropped the water level in the country's largest reservoir at Lake Mead to its lowest level in its 81-year history.

 

Could very well be the same drying that chased out the Anasazi long before European settlers landed. When they first planned dams on the Colorado they found years later they had to scale them back because of the long term drying (starting long before the industrial evolution).

 

Probably just another one of many that have occurred in the Great Basin. The land was simply not created to sustain long-term massive human habitation.

 

what climate change?

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what drought?

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It's not a drought, it's normal climate. Trump was spot on. There is no drought in California.

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what murder?

 

We got a creek dat's always got plenty o' water...

Drying Lake Mead could trigger federal water shortage by 2020
AUG. 16, 2018 -- Nevada's Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the West, could fall below a critical threshold in just two years if a new forecast by the Bureau of Reclamation is correct.

 

Good, then they have an endless supply