How Lake Mead Water Levels Changed in a Year

As the year draws to a close, the country is braced for what 2024 will look like for the water crisis gripping the Western U.S.

Lake Mead, in particular, is under the spotlight. There are also concerns about its neighbor, Lake Powell. As the largest manmade reservoir in North America, Lake Mead provides water for around 25 million people living in the region. It is also formed by the Hoover Dam, which produces hydropower for around 1.3 million people living across Nevada, Arizona, and California.

But in recent years, drought paired with an overconsumption of water has meant its water levels have declined to the lowest point on record. In recent years, white bathtub rings can be seen around Lake Mead's edge, showing just how far its water levels have dropped.

This past year however, has seen some drastic change for the reservoir.

So how have Lake Mead's levels changed throughout 2023?

In January 2023, the lake's water levels stood at 1,044.96 feet. This was only a few feet higher than the lowest point ever recorded, which was when it hit levels of around 1,040 feet in July 2022.

At this level, the lake was only around 30 percent full. In fact, this is the lowest the last had been since it was first constructed in the 1930s.

Levels as low as this poses serious concerns that the water is nearing "dead pool" levels—the level where water would no longer flow past the Dam. But the past year actually saw a great deal of recovery for the dam, too.

"Lake Powell and Lake Mead are both higher today than they were a year ago, thanks to a very wet winter last year, but they are still more than half empty," Jennifer Pitt, Colorado River Program Director for the National Audubon Society told Newsweek.

In May this year, Lake Mead's water levels steadily began to rise. By the beginning of September, it had risen to around 1066 feet.

Climate change has made weather patterns unpredictable. While it is exacerbating drought conditions in many areas, it has also caused extreme weather patterns such as storms and floods.

A series of atmospheric rivers and winter storms swept across the west from the beginning of the year to early March. The west, which had seen bone-dry conditions for years, saw record amounts of rainfall and flooding.

Lake Mead is fed through the Colorado River, which gets its flow from snowpack running down from the Colorado Rockies. This snowpack has been thin on the ground as drought caused less precipitation, but the wet winter meant that there was more than enough to go around.

"The increase in stored water brings a moment of relief to the Colorado River Basin, where for decades water uses have exceeded the supply and slowly emptied these huge reservoirs," Pitt said.

Lake Mead's water levels have remained steady since September, fluctuating only a little throughout the fall and winter periods.

However, despite this slight replenishment, we aren't out of the woods yet. It remains to be seen how Lake Mead will change in 2024, and experts are braced for a number of possibilities.

"We can't forecast water levels in 2024 until we know how much snow falls in the Rocky Mountains over the coming winter, but we do know the situation will get worse over time as climate change continues to diminish the Colorado River," Pitt said.

"By 2026, the parties who share the Colorado– seven states, the United States and Mexican federal governments—are poised to adopt new rules for reservoir management and reducing water uses throughout the basin, urgently needed to protect 40 million people, including 30 tribes, who rely on the river, as well as the region's natural heritage, the birds and wildlife that depend on the river's degraded and disappearing habitats."

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