Welcome to Nevada Week on Amber Renee Dixon.

The federal government is now stepping in after the seven states that rely on the Colorado River failed to agree on how to cut their water usage.

More on that is just ahead.

But first, what about the winner we had?

How much of an impact will it have on our water supply?

For that, we bring in Paul Miller, service coordination hydrologist for the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center.

Paul, how are you doing?

Good.

How are you doing?

We're doing well, thank you.

And the snowpack, we're hoping it is doing well as well in the Rocky Mountains, going to eventually melt and eventually make its way to Lake Mead.

It typically peaks around this time of year.

How would you describe the snowpack that has accumulated there this winter?

We've had a historically wet winter this year.

Many of the snow tell stations that we rely on to provide us with information on the amount of precipitation and the associated amount of snow water equivalent are either showing record conditions or conditions that are in the top 55 of their period of record or even top ten.

So very wet conditions, lots of snow.

They are contributing to forecasts from our office that are well above average for for the last 20 years.

Awesome.

So a solid snowpack.

But there are other factors like warmer weather and soil moisture that will influence how much water actually ends up in Lake Mead.

How can you update us on those factors and their expected impact?

So that's very true.

So with regards to soil moisture, our office models, soil moisture for the entire upper Colorado River basin and based on this very persistent drought that we've been in, we have we're modeling below normal soil moisture conditions throughout the upper Colorado River Basin.

And as a result, we're expecting a slightly less efficient runoff than we normally otherwise would have.

That being said, with all the snow that we have in the in the mountains and in the upper Colorado rated, we're still expecting much above average runoff conditions throughout the basin.

And how that runoff comes up is going to be impacted by how we warm up.

So over the last week or so, we've seen a warm up and we've started to see a lot of the snow start to melt off, especially at lower elevations.

But now we're kind of entering a little bit of a cool down here.

So we're in a little bit of a break, which is good from a flooding perspective.

We hope that we don't warm up too quickly and have all of the snow come off too fast or all at once because that just leads to a lot of flooding conditions.

But hopefully we have a gradual warm up that allows this water to come off in a relatively orderly manner.

And the flooding conditions, as would be expected.

In what areas?

Because not.

Las Vegas.

No, though, though, it's important to be aware that because we've had such high snow pack conditions, that anywhere that year around creeks or rivers or streams, years should expect higher than normal runoff conditions and higher than average runoff.

So we might not have flood stages that there are flood levels defined, but it's important to recognize that there's going to be higher than normal flow throughout the basin and colder water, too.

So you don't want to be putting yourself in any danger with these colder than normal streamflow conditions.

All that being said, we're expecting a flood threat in the upper Colorado River basin, notably the headwaters of the Colorado near the Yampa River Basin.

The parts of the Gunnison, the lower parts of the Green River Basin and and parts of the Virgin River could also see flood related impacts.

All right.

And as far as water levels at Lake Mead are at 25% capacity right now.

What does all this mean?

Well, we provide our forecast to the Bureau of Reclamation, who really set the operations at Lake Powell and Lake Mead.

So because Lake Mead is so dependent on Operation at Lake Powell and Glen Canyon Dam, that's really up to the Bureau of Reclamation on how much of this runoff is going to impact Lake Mead in the short term.

We are in a 23 year drought.

Can you tell us what this wet and cold winter means for?

You know, a lot of people out there think and this could actually put a dent in the drought.

Your response to that?

You know, it's like you mentioned, we're in a 23 year drought period and this one really good year isn't enough to pull us out of that.

Some of the ramifications of that 23 year period.

So it's a step in the right direction, but we're still probably a long ways away from where we're comfortable from a water supply perspective.

Paul Miller, thank you so much for your time.

Thank.