Brad Udall Profile picture
Senior Water and Climate Research Scientist/Scholar, Colorado State University. Climate Change and Water. @brad_udall
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Oct 26, 2021 10 tweets 3 min read
1. Previously I provided plots and threads of Lakes Mead and Powell contents separately. This short thread deals with the combined contents of both reservoirs and projections out to Aug 2023. The combined contents provides a complete view of the problem. #coriver #ClimateCrisis 2. This shows the combined contents back to 1935 when only Mead existed. In 1963 Lake Powell begins to fill. By 1983 the two are totally full -- even over full for a bit as Lake Powell had temp plywood boards installed to prevent downstream flooding.
Oct 22, 2021 8 tweets 2 min read
1. Here are the 24 month Lake Powell projections to Aug 2023. Both last month (Sep) and this month (Oct) projections are shown for "minimum probable" and "most probable". #coriver #climatechange @R_EricKuhn @jfleck 2. The Min Probable projections for both Sep and Oct are well below safe minimum power elevation of 3525 for most of the projections and even below the top of the penstocks at 3490 for some time.
Oct 5, 2021 10 tweets 3 min read
A 2nd thread on Lake Powell from this weekend. See earlier thread for Tweets 1-14. /15 Here's the bottom of the Wahweap Stateline ramp, now closed.
Oct 5, 2021 14 tweets 5 min read
/1 I spent the weekend looking at various locations on Lake Powell. A short thread follows on what I saw and my impressions. Lake Powell is the 2nd largest reservoir in the US. Since 2000 flows in #ColoradoRiver are down by 20%, half due to #climatechange. /2 Here's a look at Powell contents since 2000. We're at 3545 (right axis) now, about 7 maf out of 25 maf possible. It is stunning how low the lake is.
Jul 8, 2021 19 tweets 5 min read
2. Reclamation’s ‘unregulated inflows’ into Lake Powell show that 2021 will be the 2nd worst year after only 2002 going back to 1964. 2021 will be the RED bar most likely. This is a really grim year for runoff. 3. 2021 Inflow will be only ~3 maf, compared to the 1981-2010 average of 10.3 maf or the 2000-2021 average of 8.3 maf (20% less than 1981-2010 average).
(maf = million acrefeet)