Climate Change Changes
The most important parameter to look at when talking about how Lake Powell is supplied is the runoff of rivers into the huge lake. There are three main rivers that feed into lake Powell: the Green River in southern Wyoming, the Colorado River in Western Colorado and Utah, and the Escalante and San Juan Rivers in Arizona.
Each of these rivers starts in the mountains of their respective state and is influenced by the depth of the snowpack that feed into these rivers.
In recent years, the snowpack depth has been greatly influenced by rising climate temperatures. Two main effects occur here: 1) the heating of the ground under the snow leads to drier ground, which leads to more water being absorbed by the soil before it can get to Lake Powell, and 2)more evaporation and sublimation of the snow and water occurs with climate heating, and occurs earlier in the year.
Therefore, Lake Powell receives less and less water runoff as time goes on.
In fact, in 2022, the runoff is about 65% of normal due to these factors.