Since the onset of the Millenium Drought 25 years ago, water agencies in the Colorado River Basin have been challenged by the overwhelming, yet essential, tasks of balancing total water use with a reduced supply and recovering some of the reservoir storag...

Drawdown of the Colorado River’s reservoirs now slightly exceeds the amount of gain that occurred during the 2024 snowmelt season. For the next four months until snowmelt begins again, the basin’s reservoirs will be drawing from the excess accumulated in ...

In the three months since reservoir storage peaked in July 2024, drawdown has pulled more than 80% of the increase accomplished by the 2024 snowmelt inflow season. The 2024 snowmelt inflow season increased basin reservoir storage by only 2.5 million acre ...

The decrease in reservoir storage following the 2024 inflow season has been thankfully modest, but not nearly as favorable as it was at this time last year. Perseverance in reducing consumptive uses and losses is needed to provide reliability and security...

Despite the modest runoff of 2024, water managers were able to increase reservoir storage, because they had done such a good job of limiting consumptive uses following the 2023 runoff season.

Opportunities to rebuild basin-wide reservoir storage have been rare in the 21st century, and there have been many years in which there is significant risk of basin-wide reservoir storage depletion. the natural flow of the Colorado River at Lees Ferry in ...