Late storms are unlikely to alleviate what is shaping up to be a crummy water year on the Colorado River. As of May 1, 2012 the federal Bureau of Reclamation estimates that the river’s headwater states have received less than 50% of normal snowpack. As for what that means downstream, click here for the closing April elevation of Lake Mead, the largest storage reservoir on the Colorado system. After a bumper 2011 water year, April 2012 marks a second month of decline, with Mead dropping slightly more than five feet, giving roughly another 49 feet before Nevada and Arizona face cuts in their water deliveries. UPDATE: Aquafornia, the newsfeed of the Water Education Foundation, carries this mid-day update from the California Department of Water Resources about Sierra water suspended as snow: “Statewide, snowpack water content is only 40 percent of normal for the date, and was only 55 percent of normal the first of April, the time of year when it is historically at its peak.” Click here to keep reading. Also via Aquafornia, a nice piece by Robert Krier of the San Diego Union-Tribune on a possible shift to an El Nino cycle.

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