Lake Mead is a reservoir formed by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River in the Southwestern
United States.
It is located in the states of Nevada, and Arizona, 24 miles east of Las Vegas.
It is the largest reservoir in the US in terms of water capacity.
Lake Mead provides water to the states of Arizona, California, and Nevada as well as
some of Mexico, providing sustenance to nearly 20 million people, and large areas of farmland.
At maximum capacity, Lake Mead is 112 miles long, and 532 feet at its greatest depth.
Lake Mead has a surface elevation of 1,229 feet above sea level.
The surface area is 247 square miles, and Lake Mead contains 28.23 million acre-feet
of water.
The lake has remained below full capacity since 1983 due to drought, and increased water
demand.
As of 31 May 2022, Lake Mead held 26.63% of full capacity at 7.517 million acre-feet,
dropping below the reservoir's previous all-time low of 9.328 million acre-feet recorded in
July 2016.
In a draft 2022 Colorado River annual operating plan, released by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation,
a "Shortage Condition" is expected to be declared for 2022, due to the lake level falling below
1,075 feet, which will result in a projected 4.44% curtailment in downstream water delivery.
Lake Mead receives the majority of its water from snow melt in the Colorado, Wyoming, and
Utah Rocky Mountains.
Inflows to the lake are largely moderated by the upstream Glen Canyon Dam, which is
required to release 8.23 million acre-feet of water each year to Lake Mead.
The severe drought that is lowering the level of the lake affords anthropologists opportunities
to study indigenous dwellings that had been submerged, but it also brings them in to examine
relatively contemporary human remains that are being discovered, in order to solve forensic
mysteries about who they might be, and how they got there.
On May 1, 2022, a body was found in a barrel.
According to police homicide Lt. Ray Spencer the body may have been there since the late
1970s or early 1980s.
Since the barrel was stuck in mud, it was not found until water levels had dropped to
a low level due to the ongoing severe drought Speculation abounds about the identities of
those discovered, and how many more will be discovered as the water level recedes.
The latest forecast from the US Bureau of Reclamation shows the reservoir plummeting
from its current elevation of around 1049 feet above sea level to around 1037 feet by
this September.
One year after that, in September 2023, it suggests Lake Mead will be 26 feet lower than
its current level — just 19% of the lake’s full capacity, and a level that would trigger
the most severe water cuts for the Southwest.
The region is already in an unprecedented Tier 1 shortage on the Colorado River, which
led to mandatory water cuts that mainly impacted agriculture.
The latest forecast would suggest that California, Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico would see even
more significant cuts to their Colorado River water starting in January, and — without
a couple of blockbuster winters with lots of rain, and snow — more severe cuts the
following year that would stretch into household, and industrial use.
Federal officials make those determinations on a year-by-year basis in August.
Lake Mead, America's largest reservoir, on the Colorado River between Nevada, and Arizona,
has shrunk to historic lows, dropping to about 30 percent of its capacity.
The reservoir provides water to 25 million people in California, Arizona, Nevada, and
Mexico.
The water level has fallen from 1204 feet in 2000, to an all-time low of 1049" yesterday.
The images were acquired May 19, 2000, and May 25 2022, cover an area of 20.5 by 34.9
km, and are located at 36 degrees north, 114 degrees west.
Lake Mead is currently operating under a federally declared water shortage and its allocation
of water for 2022 has been cut by 21,000 acre feet to 279,000 acre feet for the year.
Usually, it receives 300,000 acre feet of water.
Lake Mead’s water level is projected to drop more than 30 feet in the next two years,
and the Southern Nevada Water Authority is urging people to continue conserving water.Lake
Mead was established as the Boulder Dam Recreation Area in 1936, administered by the National
Park Service.
The name was changed to the Lake Mead National Recreation Area in 1947, and Lake Mohave and
the Shivwits Plateau were later added to its jurisdiction.
Both lakes and the surrounding area offer year-round recreation options.
At the bottom of the lake is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress that crashed in 1948 while testing
a prototype missile guidance system known as "suntracker".
The wreckages of at least two smaller airplanes are also submerged in Lake Mead.
The 2018 novel Lords of St. Thomas, by Jackson Ellis, tells the story of the last family
to vacate the flooded town of St. Thomas in 1938, following construction of the Hoover
Dam and creation of Lake Mead.
Lake Mead, Hoover Dam, and the wrecked B-29 play a large role in the setting of the video
game Fallout: New Vegas.