Lake Mead

2022 - 7 - 21

Post cover — Image courtesy of "USA TODAY"

NASA satellite images show Lake Mead water levels plummeting to ... (USA TODAY)

As of Monday, Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States, was filled to 27% capacity, according to the NASA Earth Observatory.

Lake Powell, which sits above Lake Mead in northern Arizona and southern Utah, is also at dangerously low levels. The water elevation at Hoover Dam, which formed Lake Mead, is dropping significantly. "The largest reservoir in the United States supplies water to millions of people across seven states, tribal lands, and northern Mexico," NASA Earth Observatory's news release reads. The severity of this loss is underlined by its impact on those who have relied on Lake Mead's water for decades. The image from 2000 shows swaths of Lake Mead full of water, while the image from 2022 only shows one section, known as Overton Arm, filled. As of July 18 this year, it had fallen to about 1,040 feet.

Lake Mead satellite images show dramatic water loss since 2000 ... (CNN)

New satellite images released by NASA Wednesday reveal the dramatic loss of water at Lake Mead due to the ongoing mega-drought.

According to US Bureau of Reclamation data, the lake elevation at Hoover Dam was approximately 1,200 feet in July 2000. In the July 3, 2022 image, the lake elevation had fallen 158 feet, to an elevation of 1,042 feet. "It now also provides a stark illustration of climate change

NASA Images of Shrinking Lake Mead Offer 'Stark Illustration' of ... (Common Dreams)

"This is not a drought, this is aridification," said one water law expert. "This is the new world we live in."

Free to share. Free to republish. To inspire. To inform. This is not something we can survive. "This is not something we can wait out.

Satellite Photos Show Lake Mead Water Levels Dangerously Low (The New York Times)

New satellite images of the reservoir, a critical source of water for 25 million people, reveal dangerously low water levels.

The lake is just 27 percent full, its lowest level since the reservoir was filled in 1937. In 2000, Lake Mead was full of deep, midnight-blue water that flooded the banks of the rivers that fed it. The lake levels must stay above 1,000 feet to continue operating the dam’s hydropower turbines. Last summer, the federal government declared a water shortage at Lake Mead for the first time. Now the basin “finds itself perilously close to a Day Zero situation,” Ms. Pitt said, referring to the point at which the reservoir goes dry. The satellite imagery underscores how acute the Southwest drought has become.

What record-low water levels at the Hoover Dam reservoir look like ... (The Verge)

Drought is sucking the US's largest water reservoir dry. NASA released satellite images that show dramatic changes at the Hoover Dam's Lake Mead.

A body found in a barrel this year is suspected to be the victim of a mob hit in the 1980s, The Washington Post reports. Vanishing water at Lake Mead has left behind what’s euphemistically called a “ bathtub ring.” You can see it pretty well in the images below that zoom in on one section of the reservoir. The water elevation is already even lower than that and is predicted to drop another 20 feet by next summer. That’s not the only trouble at Lake Mead. Last year, officials declared a water shortage there — the first time such a declaration had ever been made along the Colorado River system. Water levels at Lake Mead are at a historic low — the reservoir hasn’t been this empty since 1937 when it was being filled for the first time. The last time it was close to full capacity was 1999, just one year before the image on the left of the slider below was taken.

Dropping water levels at Lake Mead (AZCentral.com)

A series of satellite images released by NASA shows dramatic losses at Lake Mead as it continues to fall to record lows.