The Colorado River ran high during the very wet 1980s and 1990s, which allowed Lake Powell to fill up. But over the past three decades Colorado has been dry.
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/cirs/climdiv/climdiv-pdsidv-v1.0.0-20240606
The Colorado River ran high during the very wet 1980s and 1990s, which allowed Lake Powell to fill up. But over the past three decades Colorado has been dry.
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/cirs/climdiv/climdiv-pdsidv-v1.0.0-20240606
The influx of people to the south west US has had a major impact on water in that area.
In Phoenix alone there are over 250,000 private swimming pools averaging 20,000 gallons, the evaporation from these pools is enormous (they can lose over half in a year). That doesn’t include water parks/fountains plus water for plants,golf courses and humans. These numbers are just Phoenix, add Mesa,Scottsdale,Tempe,Glendale and then on to Las Vegas NV.
We have learned nothing from the Anasazi
Is that “30 years of drought”, just a return to normal after one very wet decade?