Lake Powell Drops to Record-Low Levels
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Snow drought and unusually warm temperatures in the Colorado Basin in 2026 helped drive down reservoir water storage in the U.S. West.
The effects of a meager mountain snowpack across the Upper Colorado Basin in winter 2025-2026 had made their way downstream to Lake Powell by summer. After seasonal snowmelt declined to a relative trickle, the second-largest reservoir in the U.S. sat at record-low levels in late August and early September.
These images show a portion of Lake Powell just above Glen Canyon Dam as observed by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on the NASA-USGS Landsat 8 satellite on September 1, 2017 (left), and September 10, 2026 (right). In the 2026 image, the water level stood at 3,517.24 feet. About a month prior, it had dipped below the previous record-low level of 3,519.92 feet, set on April 13, 2023, and continued to tick downward in early September. The 2017 image represents one of the highest water levels of the past decade.
The Colorado River feeds Lake Powell and then Lake Mead farther downstream, which also hit record-low levels in August 2026. Managed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) and other agencies, the river provides water and electric power to more than 40 million people—including in Las Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and San Diego—and water to some 5 million acres of farmland in the Southwest.
Much of the Colorado Basin is arid or semi-arid, so a large portion of the river’s flow originates as snowmelt from higher elevations. The Upper Colorado Basin , like many mountainous areas across the U.S. West , saw unusually little snow accumulation in winter 2025-2026, constituting a snow drought . Stretches of record warmth further sapped the snowpack. As a result, water from snowmelt did little to replenish lake levels in spring, as it typically does.
The USBR took steps in April 2026 to stabilize Lake Powell and keep it from falling below the level needed for hydropower production—an outcome the agency deemed possible by August 2026 without intervention. USBR began releasing water from Flaming Gorge Reservoir in northern Utah and southern Wyoming into Lake Powell. It also reduced releases from Lake Powell into Lake Mead, canceled a “controlled flood” in April intended to build sandbars for fish habitat, and skipped a “cool mix” release in August aimed at protecting native species.