The news story that is not new:

Lake Mead drops to the lowest level in history

I’ll note that even though it was an El Nino winter, our precip here in the southland is still low. There was no “river in the sky” from the mid-Pacific, like a few years ago, that led to Lake Mead having a positive year over year level increase in 2010-2011.

The latest graph:

arachnoid.com

The problem here is the same one as the Ark Encounter in KY. Americans are trying to escape reality (well, all humans do.) We don’t want to face unpleasantries unless we absolutely have to.

The real-estate industry created the Las Vegas population boom. There was no acceptance that they did not provide a brand new water supply. The one time that President Obama briefly raised this issue early in his Presidency he was quieted quite quickly by our culture of instant-wealth, which sees real-estate price booms as a magic source of, well, magic.

There’s enough variation in precipitation to make any prediction of Lake Mead levels uncertain on a month-to-month basis. But the long term story remains the same as have been known for years now - Lake Mead cannot support the booming population of the desert.