Lake Mead Plunges To Record Low Amid Drought-pocalypse
The damming of the Colorado River at the Nevada-Arizona border created Lake Mead and supplies water to 25 million people, including in the cities of Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson, Los Angeles, and San Diego.
We’ve explained in the past if Lake Mead drops to dangerously low levels, the entire town of Las Vegas is absolutely screwed because two pipes, known as straws, are at elevation 1,050 feet and 1,000 feet. However, a third straw was recently constructed at 860 feet just in case the water level continued to drop. For Vegas to prevent a total collapse if Lake Mead continues to drop, it will have to continue constructing straws at lower and lower depths.
Tim Barnett, a climate scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, wrote back in 2014 that Lake Mead wasn’t able to supply Vegas with water, “it’s just going to be screwed. And relatively quickly. Unless it can find a way to get more water from somewhere, Las Vegas is out of business. Yet they’re still building, which is stupid.”
… and this quote was over seven years ago, and the water situation has dramatically worsened.
As of Wednesday, the lake’s water level sank to 1,071.56 feet above sea level and broke the record low in July 2016. Since the early 2000s, the water level has plunged 140 feet due to years of drought that has gripped the region.
“Some states, especially parts of California and parts of the southwest, it’s really quite extreme drought conditions,” Ben Cook, a climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told Reuters. Here’s a map (as of June 3) of the drought situation, which is extremely severe.
Artificial lakes, such as Lake Mead, is no match for Mother Nature, and the latest drop in water level could force state governments (Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming) to pass a water shortage declaration sometime this summer.
The demand for water downstream from Hoover Dam continues to increase. Farmers in the Southwest are itching for Lake Mead’s water to irrigate their crops as their land becomes fallow.
Over the past year, the lake has declined by more than 16 feet and is projected to fall nine more feet by the end of 2021. The lake’s trigger point for a “shortage,” declared by the government, is 1,075 feet, which has already been broken.
Lake Mead’s downward spiral has also reduced Hoover Dam’s hydropower output by 25%. At some point, the dam could stop producing electricity.
“Our previous number [for cutoff] was at elevation 1,050, and now we’ve lowered that number to 950,” Hoover Dam, facility manager Mark Cook told CBS News. “So, we bought ourselves 100 feet.”
For more than a half-decade (see: here & here), we have the ongoing problems of Lake Mead and how it could impact the water supply of tens of millions of people. Now that the lake is at levels not seen since it was filled in the 1930s, and below levels for an official “shortage.” This means an emergency declaration of water shortage could be seen sometime this summer.
The drought is so severe that the governor of Utah is urging people to pray for rain.
See more here: zerohedge.com
Header image: High Country News
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Jerry Krause
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Hi PSI Readers,
This comment is a repeat of a comment which I just wrote to ‘Sam’ at a previous article. I repeat it here because it concerns historical data about NATURAL CLIMATE CHANGE which can not be questioned.
Today’s article (https://principia-scientific.com/lake-mead-plunges-to-record-low-amid-drought-pocalypse/) draws our attention to a climatic record which cannot be questioned. For it includes a figure showing year by year water levels of Lake Mead which filled to its average level in 3 years after Hoover Dam became ‘active’ in 1935 when the USA was in a midst of an economic depression.
A better figure (https://arachnoid.com/NaturalResources/) to study is the larger figure of this site. Two things which should not be over looked are the general magnitudes of the seasonal oscillation of the level up to 1965 and the obvious decrease of level which occurred in the three years after 1952 to 1955 and the equally equally rapid rebound to an above average level by 1958. Of course, there is other interesting things which need consideration relative to NATURAL CLIMATE CHANGE.
However, this comment is just to direct your and other possible PSI Readers’ attentions to this historical data which cannot be questioned.
Have a good day, Jerry
Reply
Herb Rose
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Hi Jerry,
I question your correlation of water level with climate. A major factor in the water level is due from the explosive demand resulting from the tremendous growth of the areas using that waster, from the huge increase in population/housing in the southwest to the increase in agriculture. The same thing happened in the Sahara desert when they drilled wells to supply water. The increased water brought increased demand leading to greater desertification.
Have a good day,
Herb
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Jerry Krause
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Hi PSI Readers and Herb,
Herb wrote: “I question your correlation of water level with climate.” He evidently does not know that the magnitude of the annual precipitation is a major factor in the classification of a climate
Now it seems useful to briefly review some more factual information. “At maximum capacity, Lake Mead is 112 miles (180 km) long, 532 feet (162 m) at its greatest depth, has a surface elevation of 1,221.4 feet (372.3 m) above sea level and 247 square miles (640 km2) of surface area, and contains 26.12 million acre-feet (3.222×1013 L) of water.” and “Lake Powell is a man-made reservoir on the Colorado River in Utah and Arizona, United States. … It is the second largest man-made reservoir by maximum water capacity in the United States behind Lake Mead, storing 24,322,000 acre-feet (3.0001×1010 m3) of water when full. … The 710-foot (220 m) high dam [Glen Canyon Dam] was built by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) from 1956 to 1966 and forms Lake Powell, one of the largest man-made reservoirs in the U.S. with a capacity of 27 million acre-feet (33 km3).” (Wikipedia).
An aside: PSI Readers, note the differences of the capacity of Glen Canyon Reservoir from two different Wiki articles. In my chemistry courses, as was common, I taught my student about SIGNIFIANT FIGURES (SF). 24,322,000 has 5 SF and 27 million has 2 SF. And once electronic calculators replaced slide rules; we had to teach our students that anything more than 3 SF was likely an exaggeration of a measurement’s limit of precision.
So what was important in this last wiki quote was the date—1966—when the Glen Canyon Reservoir began to fill. And what is important to Herb’s comment is the increase in the level of Lake Mead which occurred from 1965 to 1983. And notice how the magnitude of the yearly oscillations of Lake Mead decreased after 1973. And be sure to note the significant increase of lake level that occurring from 1995 to 1958.
Have a good day, Jerry
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James McGinn
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Storms cause precipitation. Are there less storms in the southwest US than there were in prior decades? I don’t know. But if this is the case we might ask what is different over the most recent decade compared to prior decades? One answer is the prevalence of wind turbines.
Storms involve the emergence of vortices at high altitude that channel the low pressure energy from the jet stream to the location of the storm. There are local factors involved with the formation of these low-pressure-channeling vortices. One factor is energy in the atmosphere. Another factor is smoothness of boundary layers between moist air and dry air.
Here is the problem. Wind turbines remove energy from the atmosphere and introduce turbulence that destroys the smoothness of wind shear boundaries,
So, accordingly, the reason there is a drought in the US southwest is because there are fewer storms. There are fewer storms because wind turbines are destroying the local conditional factors that allow for the formation of vortices that channel the low pressure energy of storms to the location of the storm.
James McGinn / Solving Tornadoes
The ‘Missing Link’ of Meteorology’s Theory of Storms
http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=16329
Reply
Jerry Krause
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Hi James,
I totally agree with your comment. And solar panels convert the incident solar radiation into electricity.
Both these human environmental projects will change climate just as irrigation does.
Thanks for the opportunity to add to your very valid point.
Have a good day, Jerry
Reply
Herb Rosr
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Hi James,
The primary source of water for lake Mead is the Colorado river and drainage from the Rockies. I don’t see where windmills, comprising a tiny fraction of the watershed’s area, would cause a significant difference.
Herb
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James McGinn
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Hi Jerry, Herb,
Jerry:
I totally agree with your comment.
James:
I wasn’t expecting that.
Herb:
I don’t see where windmills, comprising a tiny fraction of the watershed’s area, would cause a significant difference.
James:
I don’t completely disagree. Although I have zero reservations about the validity of my theory on the physics of storms I’m not completely convinced for the same reasons you mention. On the other hand, however, I relatively small effect might have a greater effect than we are assuming in that it might be the continuity of the boundary layers that is interrupted by the wind turbines and this might effect the ability of vortices to span the distances necessary.
James McGinn / Solving Tornadoes
The Roof Leaks at the Top: Conversation with Edwin Berry Phd.
https://www.thunderbolts.info/forum3/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=446
Reply
Jerry Krause
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Hi James and PSI Readers,
I forgot to mention the importance of these two large lakes where during the dry summers there was no significant source of water vapor. Which is the case with irrigation from wells as well as the many reservoirs have been created in the USA for multiple purposes (flood control and irrigation and water to drink for the growing cities. Cannot allow the precipitation that falls rapidly flow downstream to the oceans as was occurring before there were any dams.
So many Herb and even your problem is that you and Herb do not yet GENERALLY see the BIG PICTURE!!!
Have a good day, Jerry
Reply
Jerry Krause
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Hi James,
Because of your comment: “I wasn’t expecting that.”; I went back to look at your comment.
You wrote: “Here is the problem. Wind turbines remove energy from the atmosphere and introduce turbulence that destroys the smoothness of wind shear boundaries,” I see I do not agree the wind turbines introduce turbulence because the removal of energy basically creates a calm atmosphere near the earth’s surface. But at the same time this moves the turbulence created by the earth’s surface upon the wind the relatively strong surface layer of the wind to higher altitude of the atmosphere.
However, you also wrote: “Storms involve the emergence of vortices at high altitude that channel the low pressure energy from the jet stream to the location of the storm.” What you seldom refer to is the observed vertical height (several kilometers (miles) of the ‘thunder storm’ which reach up into the base of the jet stream. And I consider a possible reason you do not draw attention to this observed fact is that you claim that the vertical convection mechanism is not important (does not exist).
Is this correct???
Have a good day, Jerry
Reply
James McGinn
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Well, there is lot of plumbing in our atmosphere. And this plumbing is mostly invisible, poorly understood, and most of it is high, around the tropopause.
The composition of the pipes of this plumbing involves a non-Newtonian form of H2O that spins up on wind shear boundaries And there is a lot of wind shear around the tropopause. (Note: when I say “wind shear” I am always talking about moist dry wind shear where one body of air is moist and the other dry.)
The uplift in thunderstorms is causes by these vortice pipes stretching laterally along the tropopause frim the jet stream to the location of the thunderstorm.
To answer your question, yes vertical convection is a delusion created by meteorologists to explain the vertical uplift seen in storms. It does not actually exist.
Meteorology’s abject failure to verify the convection as as a causal mechanism is not something they will discuss publicly. For example, note how defensive Dr. Berry Phd becomes when I draw attention to this shortcoming:
The Roof Leaks at the Top: Conversation with Edwin Berry Phd.
https://www.thunderbolts.info/forum3/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=446
James McGinn / Genius
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RabbleRouser
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Epic, long term decrease in supply from Lake Meade yet the megacorp real estate developers continue to rape and pillage like there is no concern at all and, as always, with zero consequences. They, made a fortune and walk away scott free, leaving everyone else holding the bag, as usual. When the economy crashes, or is purposely crashed, they’ll be first in line for bail outs. An age old story that nobody appears capable of learning from.
The people of these regions continue to let their career politicians run amok without any semblance of consequences, they get what they deserve.
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LaGrange
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Annual precipitation = static +/-.
Annual demand for water = up 10,000%.
Err … what could possibly go wrong …?
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JaKo
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Hi LaGrange,
You’re 10,000% correct, of course; however, you’re not proposing any remedy.
I would like to suggest one, if I may:
How about a fully “carbon neutral,” fully green desalination of the ocean water system = build a grand series of wind-farms and solar-farms all around the southern California coast, on and off shore, and in and around Topanga and even Malibu Creek Park etc. Would we see the woke state’s aristocracy revolting?
But it would make a great case study, eh?
Cheers, JaKo
Reply
Jerry Krause
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Hi Jako and PSI Readers,
It has been hours since you made your comment and it is still listed as a most recent comment. How is this??? What you don’t know why I ask this question???
I only discovered PSI about 5 or so years ago and previously I was regularly visiting other blog sites whose daily posts generated 100’s or more comments nearly every day. Of course, many of these 100’s of comment were by the same people as my. Herb, James, TomO and a few other frequent commenters are but there are also often a few names that I do not recognize even though the number of comments generated by most posts exceed 10 before the points become ‘history’.
Because of the Covid I am reasonably certain the number of PSI Readers has greatly increased. Yet, the number of comments that most postings receive have not increased. And now there have been less than 20 (maybe even 10 for I didn’t count before I began this comment) for 7 hours. And now that PSI Readers are from all over the world and not just from the USA.
Just something you might ponder as I have.
Have a good day, Jerry ==
Reply