Lake Powell Timelapse

Lake Powell is a man-made reservoir on the Colorado River, straddling the border between Utah and Arizona. Second in size only to Lake Mead, it can store up to 7.9 trillion gallons (29.9 trillion liters) of water when full — almost 12 million Olympic-sized swimming pools. This Timelapse shows how dramatically water levels have declined here in recent decades. A pale “bathtub ring” of exposed rock marks where the shoreline once reached, a record of a two-decade megadrought. After a brief recovery driven by above-average snowpack in 2023, the reservoir has resumed its decline: as of this month, Lake Powell’s elevation sits at roughly 3,519.91 feet (1,073.06 meters) — about 21.6% of total capacity — a new record low, and just 30 feet above the point at which Glen Canyon Dam would stop generating hydropower altogether.

Source imagery: Google Earth Timelapse / Landsat