Images related to Visualizing the Highs and Lows of Lake Mead

Lake Mead Still Shrinking
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Lake Mead Still Shrinking

Ongoing drought and diminished snowpack in the Rockies have combined with increasing demands downstream to cause the great reservoir to drop to historically low levels.

Published Aug 1, 2014

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Runoff Raises Lake Powell
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Runoff Raises Lake Powell

Surging with fresh water from heavy winter snow melt, Lake Powell rose significantly in the summer of 2011 after many years of low levels.

Published Aug 12, 2011

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Losses in Lake Mead
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Losses in Lake Mead

The water within a large, key reservoir in the southwestern United States has fallen to levels not seen since the 1930s.

Published Aug 18, 2015

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Water Level Changes in Lake Mead
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Water Level Changes in Lake Mead

In August 2010, Lake Mead reached its lowest level since 1956, the result of a persistent drought and increasing human demand.

Published Sep 23, 2010

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A Pulse of Water for Lake Powell
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A Pulse of Water for Lake Powell

Heavy winter and spring snowfall provided much-needed meltwater, but the effects of long-term drought mean the lake is nowhere near its highs from the 1980s and 90s.

Published Oct 1, 2019

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Rare Filling of Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre
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Rare Filling of Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre

Floodwaters have worked their way through a series of parched channels, watering holes, and lagoons to start filling the iconic Australian lake.

Published May 28, 2019

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Lake Powell Half Empty
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Lake Powell Half Empty

In spring 2014, visitors to Lake Powell will find beaches and rock formations that are usually underwater. After several years of drought, the reservoir has dropped below 50 percent capacity.

Published May 22, 2014

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Mono Lake, California
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Mono Lake, California

Published Jan 13, 2008

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Lake Powell, Utah
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Lake Powell, Utah

In the early twenty-first century, Lake Powell faced the combined threats of drought and rapid water withdrawals.

Published May 13, 2009

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A Tale of Contrasting Rift Valley Lakes
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A Tale of Contrasting Rift Valley Lakes

Long and short. Deep and shallow. Salty and fresh. Blue and brown. These are Africa’s Lake Tanganyika and Lake Rukwa.

Published Jun 20, 2019

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Water Levels in Lake Powell
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Water Levels in Lake Powell

In the 1950s, construction began on the Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River in northern Arizona. The dam created Lake Powell: a long, skinny, meandering reservoir straddling the Arizona-Utah border. Ingenuity of human design, however, did not protect this massive reservoir from the drought that struck much of the southwestern United States between 2000 and 2007.

Published Oct 17, 2007

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Lake Powell Low Despite Spring Snow
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Lake Powell Low Despite Spring Snow

The last decade has been rough for the reservoir at the heart of the intricate water storage system that sustains the American Southwest.

Published May 10, 2013

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Lake Mead by the Seasons
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Lake Mead by the Seasons

In this reservoir along the Colorado River at the Arizona-Nevada border, water levels rise and fall with the seasons each year.

Published Oct 18, 2019

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Lake Eyre Filling Peaks
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Lake Eyre Filling Peaks

By mid-June 2009, the rare filling of this lake in Australia’s Simpson Desert appeared to have reached its peak.

Published Jun 21, 2009

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