What happens if Lake Mead dries up?

What happens if Lake Mead dries up forever? If Lake Mead were to run out of water, the Hoover Dam would no longer be able to generate power or provide water to surrounding cities and farms. The Colorado River would essentially stop flowing, and the Southwest would be in a major water crisis.



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Key Points. Lake Mead has dropped by 70% due to droughts in the West and it will take many years to refill again, naturally. The reservoir is vitally important to millions of people as a source of water, electricity, and recreation.

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Lake Mead and Lake Powell, major reservoirs along the river, could reach “dead pool,” with levels so low that water can't flow out of those dams. That could turn off river supplies to cities like Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Phoenix.

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In October 2022, the water levels were at a historic low, at roughly 1,046 feet. The environmental crisis at Lake Mead led to the discovery of artifacts and even the remains of several people who were lost to the waters decades ago.

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“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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Downriver towns and major cities would see the most damage, in the event of the dam's physical collapse. Water flows would engulf many towns and growing cities around Mohave county, including Laughlin, Nevada; Needles, California; Lake Havasu, Arizona; and even as far south as Yuma, Arizona, and San Luis Rey, Colorado.

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Officials have warned that dead pool could be reached by 2025, if the lake continues drying up at the rate it is currently.

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As mentioned, it's possible for the water level in Lake Mead to drop to the point where the dam cannot generate hydroelectric power. However, it's very unlikely that the lake would completely run out of water.

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It causes catastrophic flooding, and much of the water runs off rather than soaking into the land or filling reservoirs. About 60% of the area still is in drought. It would actually take six more years of heavy rainfall in a row to refill the Lake Mead reservoir completely.

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Since 1983, years of drought along with high water demand have caused the lake to drop by 132 feet. Today, the lake is at only 30% capacity, its lowest level since it was built in the 1930s. Fortunately, heavy rainfall early in 2023 has relieved the situation a little, but only temporarily.

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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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Powell's physical elevation is projected to be 3,574.30 feet on December 31, 2023. 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.

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While the dam is expected to last for centuries, engineers predict the structure could last for more than 10,000 years, surpassing most remnants of human civilization if humans were to disappear from the earth. However, they also predict the dam's turbines without human intervention would shut down within two years.

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As much as we clearly wanted it to, Hurricane Hilary couldn't help with that. Its rain didn't reach into the Rockies to sate those soils. And while Hilary drenched areas near Lake Mead, it gained less than a foot of elevation in the days after the storm (it is a big lake, after all, which takes a lot of water to fill).

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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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1 inch = 2 billion gallons. Over seven days (Aug. 20-27), the lake gained about 13 and a half inches – 27 billion gallons. The increase at Lake Mead is because releases from Glen Canyon Dam – 280 miles upstream on the river – have increased.

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