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By Joe Edwards
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Recent storms appear to have lifted Lake Powell by more than 20 feet from its September low while delivering a smaller rise at Lake Mead, offering a boost to the Colorado River’s two largest reservoirs.
The two largest reservoirs in the U.S. hit record lows in the summer amid what federal water managers described as an “unprecedented,” multi decadal drought in the Colorado River Basin. The Colorado River, which feeds Lakes Mead and Powell, is a critical source of water and hydropower for the West, and low reservoir levels have raised concerns about future water and power supplies.
Provisional data from the U.S. Geological Survey shows Powell’s levels rose from a mid-September low of about 3,519 feet to more than 3,541 feet as of November 9. Lake Mead has also climbed slightly during this period. Its levels rose from 1,038.44 feet on September 17 to 1,039.66 feet by the weekend, according to Reclamation data.
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Though the recent rises offer some good news for the drought-stricken Colorado system, experts have warned that the gains have not ended concerns about the system’s condition. Lakes Mead and Powell were 27 percent and 26 percent full as of November 8, respectively, according to Reclamation.
Bronson Mack, a spokesman for the Southern Nevada Water Authority told KSNV that a single year of substantial precipitation would not be enough for the Colorado River system to recover.
The recent heavy rains also led to damaging floods and forced evacuations in portions of the Southwest. A Reclamation spokesman told Newsweek previously that while storms had improved many near-term reservoir conditions, “it is very early in the forecasting season, and considerable uncertainty remains.” The agency said it continues to plan for a “wide range of operational scenarios.”
Newsweek reached out to the agency for additional comment on November 10.
“The recent, and continuing, rise of Lake Powell is significant, in the sense that we have taken a half-step back from the edge of the cliff. Powell has returned to conditions in early February 2026. But those conditions were a true crisis,” Jack Schmidt, a senior research scientist at the Center for Colorado River Studies at Utah State University told Newsweek following heavy rains in the Southwest last week. “Taking a full step back from the edge of the [cliff] can only come if we have a huge winter of Rocky Mountain snow, and even then we will remain perilously close to the cliff edge.”
Sarah Porter, the director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University, added that Lake Powell would require substantially greater inflows to improve its outlook.
“We need much more water to flow into the reservoir to ease concerns, much less stabilize the system,” she told Newsweek.
Lake Powell Gains Provide Opening to Discuss Long-Term Plans: Glen Canyon Institute
The Glen Canyon Institute, a non-profit that supports restoring Glen Canyon and allowing the Colorado River to flow freely through the Grand Canyon, told local outlet KUTV that Lake Powell’s recent boost provides an opportunity to explore long-term plans like “Fill Mead First.”
The strategy, which the organization has advocated for, would make Lake Mead the Colorado River’s principal storage reservoir and use Lake Powell as a backup.
“None of the big-picture problems have been solved, and so we're going to keep doing what we have always been doing, which is supporting science and research and using that to advocate for the restoration of Glen Canyon,” said Zanna Stutz, the Glen Canyon Institute’s program director, told the outlet.
She added that Reclamation should consider new approaches amid low water levels in the reservoirs.
“I think in some ways we are now in a world where we can take a step back and be out of the nitty-gritty of the negotiations and start to think about bigger-picture, more creative solutions in some ways,” she said, according to KUTV.
Colorado River Crisis Fuels Legal Dispute
The states that depend on the river—Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming—have struggled to reach a consensus on how to share its water, with key agreements that dictate its governance expiring in 2026.
Nevada filed a federal lawsuit in August challenging the Department of the Interior’s new operating framework for the river, arguing that it could impose steep cuts on Lower Basin states without requiring mandatory reductions from the Upper Basin. Arizona moved to join the case in October, saying the federal plan placed an unfair share of the burden on Lower Basin communities.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: John Fitzpatrick and Paul Donnelley.
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