Has Lake Mead risen with rain?

“It has some impact, but it's not very much. I don't think you would notice Lake Mead appreciably rising just from the results of big rainstorms,” Miller said. After years of mostly seeing its water levels fall, Lake Mead has steadily risen since April.



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LOWEST LEVEL: On July 27, 2022, the lake hit its lowest point since it was filled in the 1930s, dipping to 1,041.71 feet above sea level. Within a month, the lake level rose more than 2 1/2 feet. As 2023 began, a very wet winter changed the picture entirely, rebuilding water in the Colorado River basin.

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Although, Lake Mead has seen a sharp increase in its water levels over the past few months. At the beginning of 2023, the lake's water levels stood at 1,044 feet. This was following a bone dry summer, when the western U.S. was suffering during an intense stretch of drought.

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It would actually take six more years of heavy rainfall in a row to refill the Lake Mead reservoir completely.

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Lake Mead water levels up after snowy winter, former Hurricane Hilary. Lake Mead water levels were at record low levels last summer but snow over the winter and former Hurricane Hilary helped restore some water to the basin.

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With intervening flows between Lake Powell and Lake Mead of 1.32 maf in CY 2023, Lake Mead's physical elevation is projected to be 1,065.42 feet on December 31, 2023. The WY 2023 unregulated inflow into Lake Powell in the August Probable Maximum inflow scenario is 13.75 maf, or 143% of average.

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Lake Mead's water level was recorded at 1,049.75 feet in spring 2023. This is about six feet higher than the expected level. This is nearly 40 feet more than it was just five months earlier.

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Typically, Lake Mead's water levels rise over the winter and early spring months and start to decline in March. However, with the amount of snowfall supplementing the lake through the spring as it melted, this year the lake began rising in earnest in May and continued its upward trek through mid-September.

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The water levels for Lake Mead are projected to reach slightly over 1,065 feet by January 2024, according to the Bureau of Reclamation, in large part due to an extremely wet winter that eased the effects of the longstanding drought. In October 2022, the water levels were at a historic low, at roughly 1,046 feet.

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Electricity would not just be the only thing lost. Without Lake Mead, Las Vegas would lose access to 90 percent of its water sources. If Lake Mead were to reach dead pool, it would technically still be able to supply drinking water to Las Vegas. But there will not be enough water for agricultural activities.

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It would actually take six more years of heavy rainfall in a row to refill the Lake Mead reservoir completely. Time is ticking to solve the problem before future droughts dry up the lake completely. Without irrigation, farmland like this in California and other western states would revert to the desert.

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Despite hope that the lake will return to what it once was, Lake Mead's chance at a full recovery is slim. Jennifer Pitt, director of the National Audubon Society's Colorado River Program, previously told Newsweek that it is possible only if three years of average snowfall occur with no water use from the reservoir.

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This is something many boaters have done, but a significant amount of snow may help bring some of the water back. Those higher snowpacks are going to affect how Lake Powell is and Lake Mead, says the vice president of Lake Mead Marina's operations, Bruce Nelson.

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Rising temperatures due to climate change have sapped more than 10 trillion gallons of water from the Colorado River over the last two decades, enough water to completely fill Lake Mead from top to bottom, according to a recent study from researchers at UCLA.

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If the reservoir dips below 895 feet (272.8 meters) – about 150 feet (45 meters) lower than where it is now – Lake Mead would reach what's called dead-pool level. Dead pool is when water in a reservoir drops so low that it can't flow downstream from the dam.

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