Why Southwestern Floods Won’t Solve A Water Crisis

Floods have overwhelmed parts of the parched American Southwest in recent days and weeks, pouring water into critically low reservoirs. But the deluge did little to ease worries over the water crisis that required significant limits on usage across the Colorado River basin earlier this year. Instead, it exemplified a sort of weather whiplash that is becoming more common as the climate warms, making it harder to maintain a stable water supply for the West.

Right after enduring one of its driest stretches of spring and summer on record, the Southwest is now experiencing one of its wettest autumns . “It gives us a little bit of breathing room, but we’ve just got to see how much it snows this year,” said Kathryn Sorensen, research director at the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University. Here’s what to know about the floods and what they mean for the Colorado basin, which supplies water to 40 million people and 5.5 million acres of farmland across parts of seven U.S. states, as well as about two dozen Native tribes and two Mexican states.

How much has the rain increased water supplies? Water levels have risen sharply in Lake Powell, the nation’s second-largest reservoir, which straddles the Utah-Arizona border. The lake’s surface rose by nearly 16 feet from mid-September through the end of October. Lake Powell is expected to continue to rise once floods that hit parts of Colorado and Arizona last weekend flow downstream. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

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