What recent storms mean for Arizona's water

Arizona is starting to dry out after this past weekend's daily. Yeah, it really was. And while we saw flash flooding and damage across the state, there is a real silver lining to all of that water. A weekend of heavy rain can impact Arizona's water picture in a big way. We're not just talking about giving your yard a free soaking or helping out that thirsty saguaro out front. Runoff, that is, like this, can surge watersheds across the entire state. But just how much of a difference did this recent round of storms actually make for our overall water supply? Well, let's get right to Crystal this morning with her weather wisdom Wednesday. Good morning, Crystal. Yeah, hey, good morning, guys. So I've been crunching the numbers, taking a look at how all of that rain has impacted us, and the numbers are pretty impressive. So we're going to start with our SRP reservoirs, then we'll talk Lake Powell. Take a look. This is the latest water report information from SRP. I did a little comparison of today's numbers versus last Wednesday's numbers, which was before we started to see that round of rain Friday, and then the additional rain that came through Saturday through Sunday. So if you do a little comparison here, Roosevelt is now almost 60% full. It's nearly 20% higher than it was one week ago. Apache Lake is at 94% full. That's a 1% increase. But Canyon, remember, they drained Canyon, so it was down into the 20s. to 30% full As a result now up to 37% full, so it is 8% higher Saguaro actually slightly lower, I back. to what is hoped to be a big snow winter due to the El Nino. So this is all great stuff to see. Then we go over to the Verde watershed. Horseshoe Lake is now nearly 80% full. That's an 8% increase. Bartlett is now 97% full, and that is a 10% increase from just one week ago. The Verde is now almost entirely full, 90% for the watershed. Last week it was 81%, and last year... It was at 55%. So again, 90 versus 55 a year ago at that standing. And this is as we're going into our water year when we start to build our snowpack that runs off into these reservoirs. So this is just great to see for our SRP data. Now let's talk Lake Powell. These are the latest numbers. So as of November 2nd, the level at Lake Powell was at 3,533 foot elevation, which obviously is still well below full storage of 3,700 feet. The elevation on October 2nd, So at the beginning of October, We're looking at a one-month difference, was 35.18, which means in one month, Powell has risen almost 15 feet. Again, we love to see this. Last time that it was this high, at that 35.33, was on February 11th of 2026. So basically what has happened with the wet weather we've had in the month of October and the beginning of November is that we have rebounded from all the water we used in summer, which is our biggest water use period. Again, this is all awesome news. But I like to keep it Get real and put things in perspective. This is the look at the last 10 years at Lake Powell. And if you compare November 2nd, 2016, the elevation was at 3,609. Right now, we're at 3,533. That is still a 76-foot drop in the last decade. But another silver lining is, if you recall, we dropped to nearly as low of levels as we hit this September when we hit a record low at Lake Powell. We dropped to nearly that low in the 22-23 period. But with two big winters, we actually were able to rebound quite a bit. So there is the possibility that we could. We could see some improvement as we move forward if we have a couple of big winters ahead of us. There's a look at the drought monitor for the state. This is also great to see. There is no longer any part of the state in exceptional drought or extreme drought and severe drought. Although it does include portions of Maricopa County, it's only at 6% of the state. The rest of the state either has been lifted out of short-term drought or is at that month. moderate and abnormally dry levels. So these are all great to see. Of course, as a reminder, this is more the monitor like agricultural drought as well as some of our reservoirs, some of the reservoirs like SRP. But it is not looking at the hydraulic drought, which, as we know, has been multi decadal and we're going to need A lot more water for perspective for the jump back up to what we saw back in 2016, for instance, or to get to like full level, we would need like what 10, 15 of the kind of events we had this past weekend. Just not all at once like we have. Yeah, it's better to get big snowpack because then it kind of gradually melts into our reservoirs, which is what we like. So hopefully the El Nino does that this winter. It'll be great news for skiers. That's for sure.