A dangerous stretch of extreme heat sweeping across the Southwest is poised to accelerate the melt of an already depleted mountain snowpack, prompting new warnings that water shortages could threaten the 40 million people who rely on the Colorado River this summer.
The alert follows mounting concerns from forecasters and water managers after a winter that produced historically low snowfall across the river basin.
The Colorado River Basin—already strained by decades of overuse and rapid warming—enters spring in one of its most precarious positions on record. Snowpack across the basin is hovering at roughly half of normal or lower, the result of a warm, dry winter that ranks among the hottest ever observed in several Western states. Statewide snowpack in Colorado stood at just 62 percent of normal at the end of February, with water managers warning of low stream flows heading into summer. With record warmth forecast through March and an intense heat wave now arriving, experts say the rapid melt of this limited snow reserve will deepen the region’s long‑running water crisis.
Roughly 40 million people live in the Colorado River Basin, which encompasses Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, Utah in the Upper Basin, and Arizona, California, and Nevada in the Lower Basin.
“This heat wave will also not be good news for the water supply for the Colorado River Basin,” AccuWeather meteorologist Kai Kerkow told Newsweek. “A warm and dry winter has led to a current snowpack of 50 percent of the historical average or lower across much of the Southwest, and this heat wave will cause much of this snow to melt. This can bring the threat for water shortages for this summer and worsen the ongoing drought over much of the area.”
That warning aligns with newly released assessments from hydrologists and government agencies across the West, who report deepening snow drought conditions from the Rockies to the desert Southwest. Snow drought intensified through February and early March due to record-breaking warmth, and every major river basin in the West—including the Upper and Lower Colorado—experienced one of its warmest winters on record.
Water managers in Colorado and beyond are already preparing for another difficult season. Denver Water, which depends on mountain snow for 90 percent of its supply, reported snowpack levels between 55 percent and 71 percent of normal across its collection areas and cautioned that additional drought response measures are likely this year. Meanwhile, Lake Powell—one of the river’s two major reservoirs—expects to receive just 52 percent of its usual inflow from snowmelt and is edging closer to “minimum power pool,” the point at which its hydropower production could cease, Bloomberg reported.
Looking ahead, the National Weather Service (NWS) Climate Prediction Center anticipates above-average temperatures across the western two-thirds of the country through March 29 at least, according to eight- to 14-day outlooks from the agency. As spring heat ramps up, forecasters say the coming weeks will determine whether the region can avoid the most severe impacts. But with water levels already near historic lows and no heavy March snowstorms in sight, hydrologists caution that the West is running out of time—and water—to avert another punishing summer.
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