More than 64 million people are directly affected by drought in the Southwest and Southern Plains, and far more are indirectly affected because of the vast number of farms, orchards, and ranches that supply the rest of the United States.
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.
In late April 2007, the company in charge of the lakes and reservoirs that make up the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme in southern New South Wales reported that lake levels were at 10 percent of capacity, the lowest they had been since the system was built about 50 years ago.
Temperatures across much of the region in 2018 have been well above the norms, while precipitation has been well below—a recipe for struggling farmers and concerned forest fire managers.
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.
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.
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.