An unusually wet winter has brought much of Arizona out of its drought, and also has contributed to rising water levels in popular lakes.
Snowmelt from the Rocky Mountains has been pouring into Lake Powell since weather began to warm up. The lake is rising six to 15 inches each day, and according to Greg Smith, senior hydrologist at Colorado Basin River Forecast Center, this is an immense improvement from 2018.
“So if you look at 2018, the volume of water that came into Lake Powell during the April dry period was 2.6 million acre feet. And this year, we're forecasting 10.1 million acre feet. So you can see I mean, it's it's it's quite a, you know, huge increase from what we saw last year,” Smith said.
One acre-foot is equal to 325,851 gallons. Smith said this is the largest inflow since 2011.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been updated to correct the number of gallons in an acre-foot.
