u/GoodForTheTongue

USBR released their mandatory 24-month study dated April 2026 containing the Upper Colorado Region forecast, late yesterday evening - maybe to bury the news after hours on a Friday? Because...it's pretty dam(n) bleak.

Under the USBR's "most probable inflow" scenario, which assumes average precipitation:

• Lake Powell will drop below its minimum power pool elevation (3490') sometime early this September 2026.
• That means there would be no - zero - power generated by Glen Canyon Dam starting early September 2026...and continuing until June 2027. That's 9 months of zero power.
• And scariest of all, Powell is forecast to drop to 3455 feet elevation by February 2027. That's only 85' above dead pool and only 65' above the USBR's newly-determined "safe" lowest outflow level (about 3390'), which now becomes the effective dead pool level.

That's the news, link is above if you want to read for yourself - Powell projections are on page 11.

PS: Page 12 of that same report (link above) has Lake Mead forecasts, and they're just as bad, if not worse: 1032' by the end of calendar 2027.