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Originally Posted by GG Allin
I know nothing about the weather out in the southwest but it looks like there is some rain out there today and the map looked similar yesterday. How many days like this would it take for a sizable increase in the water levels out there.
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A massive number. The water in the Colorado River system originates almost entirely from snow, melting off the west slope of the Rockies and other ranges west of the Cont. divide. The 4 upper basin states (Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico) mostly produce the water, the 3 lower Basin states (Arizona, California, Nevada) mostly consume the water. Drought and climate cycles are why reservoirs exist (with power production as an important fringe benefit). The Colorado story is interesting and complex. It almost certainly is "overallocated" as the original divvying up of the waters nearly 100 years ago was based on hydrological data collected during what is known now to be a "wet" period. Someone mentioned the problem is too many humans. That's probably right. The lower basin states have been using their full allocation and then some for a long time. It is growth in the upper basin states, primarily Colorado, that has stressed the system as they have started to use more and more of their legal allocation. That, and a 25 year general reduction in winter snowpack. Whether climate change, or merely normal climate cycle is difficult to say (paleoclimatological data shows rather consistent wet/dry cycles of roughly 30 years for the southwestern US for millenia).