Heavy rain that caused flooding last week in the Four Corners area of Utah, Colorado and New Mexico has had what water experts say is a beneficial side effect: A marked rise in the water level of Lake Powell.
Saturday’s daily measurement of Lake Powell’s level was at 3,526.1 feet above sea level — which is 1.1 feet above the level the day before, and 7.1 feet above where the lake was two weeks ago, according to the Lake Powell Water Database. It’s also 9.5 feet above the lake’s lowest point on Sept. 15.
“That’s phenomenal this time of year,” Gene Shawcroft, chair of the Colorado River Authority of Utah, said Sunday.
That rise — which Shawcroft said likely will go to 10 feet when Sunday’s measurements are made — amounts to about 600,000 acre-feet of water going into Lake Powell. That’s equivalent, he said, to twice the capacity of Jordanelle Reservoir.
“Lake Powell’s elevations were approaching very critically low elevations, and this 10 feet will make a big difference,” Shawcroft said, adding that “it doesn’t solve the problem by any stretch of the imagination.”
Saturday’s measurement was 19.55 feet below where the lake was exactly one year earlier, according to the database. And, Shawcroft said, the lake’s lowest point in September was 180 feet below where the lake would be if it was full — which hasn’t happened since 1983.
Paul Miller, service coordination hydrologist for the National Weather Service’s Colorado Basin River Forecast Center, said Sunday that the 9.5-foot rise is “a drop in the bucket,” but still good news.
Read the full article by Sean P. Means at sltrib.com.
This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aims to inform readers across the state.