… By some measures, 2026 is shaping up to be the worst year the river has seen since records began. Flows are down 20 percent from 2000 levels. Lake Powell, the reservoir straddling Utah and Arizona, may drop below the threshold for generating hydropower before the year is out. The negotiations between the seven states over how to share what’s left have collapsed twice, and the U.S. federal government is threatening to impose its own plan. While the states argue and the river shrinks, a growing set of machine learning tools is being deployed across the basin. Federal water managers are running millions of simulations to stress-test reservoir strategies against different possible futures.

Other Colorado River management news:

• Western Water Rewind: As Colorado River negotiations near a critical deadline, a new way of looking at risk is revealing hard choices
• The Salt Lake Tribune: Lake Powell’s water forecast was bad. A record-hot March made it worse.
• KJZZ (Phoenix): Cloud seeding could be a cost-effective way to put a little more water in the Colorado River
• Capital & Main (Los Angeles): Video: As shrinking Colorado Rive imperils California agriculture, data centers seek more water