Lake Mead is drying up

[dreams2fly]

Water levels are low at Lake Mead, the lake formed when the Hoover dam blocked the Colorado River.

How low?

Well, we visited the lake this weekend. From a distance, you can see the white band on the rocks and ground surrounding the lake, but it's hard to put it into perspective. Judging by the marks on the dam towers, I would guess the lake

Comments

[dreams2fly]

Well, by the chart that updates monthly with the water levels (linked above), when I visited last in Jan of 1998 the water was close to its all time high. You could lean over the railing and see the giant koi begging for bread bits anytime a human head appeared over the edge. It was quite a shock, then, to see it so low 11 years later.

As for the 9/11 thing, I think that's just a myth. They've certainly upped security there big time. However, the water levels began to drop significantly at the beginning of 2000, nearly 2 years before 9/11 (21 months-ish). I have overheard stories that the dam was let out one winter as they do in anticipation of the spring floods. However, they let out more than the rain/snow-fall of that year had to replenish it.

It looks like the last decently wet year was the winter of 04/05. Since then, we've been getting less and less precipitation. We can only hope that the winter we've had will help - though even now, we're below our average rainfall for this spring.