The New Water Year 2025-2026

F

flowerbug

Escalante-Class Member
It has been interesting so far that is for sure and with the recent storm mostly going north it reminds me of how much can change just from one good hit from the Pineapple Express.

I'm waiting to see how much of an impact this storm has on inflow amounts. Hoping for a bunch!

I like to keep the totals in mind when looking at the system as whole, here are the current upstream reservoir total as kept by the water database nice people: :)

List Totals2025-10-2510,344,6407,215,54869.75 %


And then these two biggies:

Lake Powell is 28% of Full Pool (24,322,000 af)
Lake Mead is 31.88% of Full Pool (25,877,000 af)


They are currently draining Lake Mead more than Lake Powell.

Powell water storage has risen by 62,384 AF and total inflows have exceeded total outflows by 82,741 AF

Lake Mead water storage has fallen by 462,686 AF


I also keep an eye on how California water reservoirs are doing along with the Tulare basin, Mono Lake, Owens Lake and the Salton Sea. Plus the Great Salt Lake is interesting too so I'm usually checking that out from time to time.
 
flowerbug said:
It has been interesting so far that is for sure and with the recent storm mostly going north it reminds me of how much can change just from one good hit from the Pineapple Express.

I'm waiting to see how much of an impact this storm has on inflow amounts. Hoping for a bunch!

I like to keep the totals in mind when looking at the system as whole, here are the current upstream reservoir total as kept by the water database nice people: :)

List Totals2025-10-2510,344,6407,215,54869.75 %


And then these two biggies:

Lake Powell is 28% of Full Pool (24,322,000 af)
Lake Mead is 31.88% of Full Pool (25,877,000 af)


They are currently draining Lake Mead more than Lake Powell.

Powell water storage has risen by 62,384 AF and total inflows have exceeded total outflows by 82,741 AF

Lake Mead water storage has fallen by 462,686 AF


I also keep an eye on how California water reservoirs are doing along with the Tulare basin, Mono Lake, Owens Lake and the Salton Sea. Plus the Great Salt Lake is interesting too so I'm usually checking that out from time to time.
Click to expand...
Just in case you didn't know, here is a dashboard of California Reservoirs: Major Water Supply Reservoirs

They are all around their historical averages.

You mentioned Owens Lake, and I thought that was just a dry lake. And it mostly is. But apparently there is also an Owens Reservoir on the other side of the Sierra Nevada range. That one is also basically empty right now. I guess that is managed by the US Army Corps of Engineers, so isn't on the California dashboard I posted. It's here: Water Data - U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
 
RichieW13 said:
Just in case you didn't know, here is a dashboard of California Reservoirs: Major Water Supply Reservoirs
Click to expand...

Yes, i've got that one bookmarked and have been following it. Since it is not really directly related to Lake Powell or the Colorado River basin I didn't inlcude it here.


RichieW13 said:
They are all around their historical averages.

You mentioned Owens Lake, and I thought that was just a dry lake. And it mostly is. But apparently there is also an Owens Reservoir on the other side of the Sierra Nevada range. That one is also basically empty right now. I guess that is managed by the US Army Corps of Engineers, so isn't on the California dashboard I posted. It's here: Water Data - U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Click to expand...

I follow Owens Lake because it is similar to The Salton Sea and The Great Salt Lake and Lake Owens (all lakes which have no exit flows so they accumulate salts) and it is one of the worst disasters in California which has cost a lot of $ so far to moderate the emissions of dust (which is what it would be like for The Salton Sea or The Great Salt Lake). None of them are easy to deal with but even worse to ignore.
 
I concur. Drove along the north side of Mono Lake, through Lee Vining, Yosemite, Lake McClure/Lake McSwain (McSwain is a forebay) and back via Tonopah/Rachel,NV a few weeks ago. Not surprisingly, very low water levels / very high human population drawing on the resources.

[As an aside, the longest single straight-as-a-die stretch of highway I have thus far travelled in western States is CA167 along the north shore of Mono Lake (approx. 20 mile stretch and one can see its entire length, virtually). Beautiful and fun!]
 
flowerbug said:
Yes, i've got that one bookmarked and have been following it. Since it is not really directly related to Lake Powell or the Colorado River basin I didn't inlcude it here.




I follow Owens Lake because it is similar to The Salton Sea and The Great Salt Lake and Lake Owens (all lakes which have no exit flows so they accumulate salts) and it is one of the worst disasters in California which has cost a lot of $ so far to moderate the emissions of dust (which is what it would be like for The Salton Sea or The Great Salt Lake). None of them are easy to deal with but even worse to ignore.
Click to expand...
I own property that abuts the GSL shoreline.
It is sad to not even be able to see the water anymore.
 
The Oracle said:
I concur. Drove along the north side of Mono Lake, through Lee Vining, Yosemite, Lake McClure/Lake McSwain (McSwain is a forebay) and back via Tonopah/Rachel,NV a few weeks ago. Not surprisingly, very low water levels / very high human population drawing on the resources.

[As an aside, the longest single straight-as-a-die stretch of highway I have thus far travelled in western States is CA167 along the north shore of Mono Lake (approx. 20 mile stretch and one can see its entire length, virtually). Beautiful and fun!]
Click to expand...
Conversely, the south shore of Mono Lake has perhaps the most fun road I have ever driven, CA120, which is an absolute roller coaster of a road.
Mono Mills, CA - Roller Coaster Road
 
nzaugg said:
Conversely, the south shore of Mono Lake has perhaps the most fun road I have ever driven, CA120, which is an absolute roller coaster of a road.
Mono Mills, CA - Roller Coaster Road
Click to expand...
Yes. I drove the full loop around Mono Lake about 10 years ago in my Jeep. The south side was challenging especially due to about 2 miles of diagonal ridges which cause a side-to-side violent rocking. Have you ever seen the delicate sand tufa on the south side?
 
I see in recent news for Mono Lake that they may finally have a chance of getting the level back up to where it needs to be since LA is expanding their waste-water reclaiming efforts. This is a big improvement if they can get it going - I'm not sure when the new expansion starts to come on-line.

The other good news is that once they get Mono Lake back to a healthy level then they have more options for helping out the Lake Owens situation out and woudn't it be great if they could get an actual lake there again at some point or improve the habitat there for fish and birds (not something I expect to see in my lifetime but it would be nice to hear about it having a chance to happen before I'm done).
 
The new expansion comes on-line in 2027-2028. I hope Mono Lake can see changes immediately after it comes on-line as every little bit helps put more dusty salty playa back under water again.

And while Mono Lake and Lake Owens may not be directly related to the Colorado River basin and Lake Powell issues it is an indirect driver of how much water southern California does feel the need to divert. If instead they get to the point where they feel more secure about their water supplies perhaps they can divert less and leave those AF of water for the river itself even an extra 50,000 AF can mean the difference between some environmental projects or Colorado River flows being available or not.
 
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