"For us to have a functioning, operating plan for 2026, decisions are going to have to be made this month."
Tony Davis with the best coverage of Interior Sec. Burgum's recent Arizona visit where water scarcity cast a shadow over his planned focus on mineral abundance: tucson.com/news/local/e...
"This is the worst scenario we could have."
Utah's snowpack typically peaks this week. Instead, it's around 20% of normal.
My latest for @kuer.org on how a poor winter and a March heat wave combined to create unprecedented conditions ⤵️
www.kuer.org/science-envi...
April 1 is a key milestone for the West’s snowpack.
This year’s data paint a disturbing portrait of the historic snow drought.
My latest at snow.news:
www.snow.news/p/snowpack-a...
Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic, CO says snowpack at their high elevation campus is the lowest in their 50 plus years of records: www.rmbl.org/news-press/m...
It's April 1 -- a key date for taking stock of western snowpack to prepare for the year ahead.
This year, it's abysmal. Upper Colorado River snow is 24% of the long-term average. It looks more like June out there, not early April.
Get ready to see some sad, weird stuff happen on the Colorado.
Current snapshot from NRCS snow dashboard for the Upper Colorado River Basin, depicting snow water equivalent taking an extraordinary nosedive in March and moving well into record-low territory for the calendar date.
The astonishing rate of March snowmelt in Colorado River Basin continues, and is now well into record-low territory (even, it appears, relative to pre-SNOTEL era). And the extreme regional heatwave is only slowly fading, with unprecedented March melt continuing in meantime.
Map of CoAgMET high temperatures for March 21, 2026, with highs in the 90s on the eastern plains, 70s in the mountains, and 80s on the western slope. From https://coagmet.colostate.edu
High temperatures like these across the state in March are ridiculous. The March statewide record of 96°F was tied at several locations including Campo, Burlington, and La Junta (so far, data still coming in); pretty much every other March record was broken. #cowx 1/
I opened this Colorado River snowpack graph up today expecting it to be bad, and my mouth still dropped open and I gasped.
This is... so so so bad.
Map of the lower 48 United States showing 0.25° GFS run from 18z on 20 March 2026. The variable is the 500 hPa geopotential height percentile rank considering ERA5. There is a record-breaking ridge across the Western U.S.
Honestly, this historic heat dome across the West is really hard to put into words for me. Temperatures over 110°F (43°C) in March, shattering all-time monthly records on multiple consecutive days, and not just by a little.
➡️ I can confirm this is human-caused climate change.
polarwx.com/models/
What does a multi-day springtime heat dome do to an already record low Colorado River basin snowpack? We're about to find out.
Temperature records are set to be smashed across Colorado and Utah this week.
Reporters! If you need Lake Powell/Bullfrog pics for your stories, check out this album from 2022 with free-to-use photos for news stories: www.waterdesk.photos/Utah/Bullfro...
For a sense of how much floating infrastructure needs to be moved... here's an overhead view of Bullfrog from October 2022. (Credit: Alexander Heilner/The Water Desk)
Dropping Lake Powell levels are forcing one of its largest remaining marinas to relocate to stay in water.
Park Service announces today that Bullfrog marina on the reservoir's north end will move entirely to the other side near Halls Crossing to remain viable this year: www.nps.gov/glca/learn/n...
If the Colorado River crisis is a slow-moving train wreck, the train is about to hit us.
New federal forecasts show Lake Powell possibly dropping low enough to lose hydropower production in about 6 months or less. Even more troubling, it could cease producing power for the following *year*.
After just wrapping up its warmest winter on record, Utah appears to be at the center of the bullseye for next week’s heat wave. Not ideal.
The snowpack is below normal in every river basin in the West.
This March 8 map shows that a few watersheds are above 90% (green), but all that red shading indicates less than 50% of the 1991-2020 median for snow water equivalent.
www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs-ini...
I spoke with author and law professor Robert Glennon about the uncertain consequences of a Colorado River court battle:
"This is rolling the dice on something that is really quite profound. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to go to Vegas and play the craps." www.latimes.com/environment/...
A coalition of cities and water agencies led by the Central Arizona Project has started rolling out TV ads: "Arizona is being unfairly targeted for reductions of Colorado River water that would cripple our state." @brandonloomis.bsky.social @azcentral.com www.azcentral.com/story/news/l...
The impasse among the states is pushing Glen Canyon Dam closer to the brink. "Aridification is rendering the dam obsolete, at least as a water storage savings account," @landdesk.bsky.social writes: www.landdesk.org/p/the-colora...
Even after last week's wallop of winter snow, Upper Colorado River basin snowpack is still at a record low.
The March forecast is looking warm and dry across the Southwest and southern Rockies. Wouldn't be surprised to see water supply forecasts approach record lows too.
New projections out today show Lake Powell -- nation's second largest reservoir -- careening toward a loss of hydropower production as early as July 2026. Even the more optimistic model shows it losing power in December.
Meanwhile, the basin's leaders today admit failure on crafting new policy.
Past Colorado River agreements have been pushed over the finish line due to federal pressure and real threats.
But the Trump administration, which uses threats to spur action on nearly every other policy front, has taken an uncharacteristic back seat in this current round of talks:
Still a day away from the federal deadline for Colorado River states to submit a detailed plan for cuts, but hopes for any last minute deal are gone.
Nevada's negotiator John Entsminger is calling it: "The basin states have failed."
State water officials are asking towns and industry along the North Platte River to assess their water rights and whether they might have to tap into an emergency water bank.
For now, those with "junior" rights must shut off their spigots, with little snow and water relief in the forecast.
It's not just the WaPost, @rhettayersbutler.bsky.social writes: "It reflects a wider weakening of the institutions responsible for producing and maintaining a shared factual record, particularly on subjects that are politically contested and structurally complex." news.mongabay.com/2026/02/what...
Still lots of uncertainty in how spring snowpack accumulation will shake out, but it's possible the Colorado River into Lake Powell could be heading toward a new record low flow this year, per @nws.noaa.gov's Colorado Basin River Forecast Center:
Graph showing the NOAA Colorado Basin River Forecast Center's forecasts of April to July inflows to Lake Powell from 1991 to 2026, with colored lines showing how each season's forecast evolved from January through July. The latest Forecast, February 2026, is the lowest outlook for this time of year since at least 1991.
Given the latest NOAA CBRFC inflow forecast for Lake Powell, I dusted off this plot from my Twitter days and updated it.
The Feb 1st outlook for Colorado River flows hasn't been this poor in >35 years. Even if wetter weather ahead, bottom-10 outcome likely.
h/t @glenwoodrek.bsky.social
More grim news about the West's snow drought:
🛰️ Lowest Feb. 1 snow cover in the satellite record (since 2001)
📉 Record-low Feb. 1 statewide snowpack in Oregon, Colorado, and Utah
⚠️ “A Dry, Warm January Leaves the West With the Worst Snowpack in Decades”
www.drought.gov/drought-stat...
How failing negotiations could spiral into a bitter fight over the Colorado River
As the deadlock persists, the chances of a court battle are growing. Arizona's negotiator says without a deal, a lawsuit is likely.
I spoke with Colorado's governor about the impasse:
www.latimes.com/environment/...
