Big winter nearly filled all of SRP’s reservoirs, snapping 6-year skid
Aug 24, 2017, 4:03 AM | Updated: 2:39 pm
(Salt River Project Photo)
(Salt River Project Photo)
PHOENIX — For the first time in the better part of a decade, nearly all seven of Salt River Project’s reservoirs were filled by winter precipitation, the agency said in a release Wednesday.
The 970,440 acre-feet of rain that made its way into the reservoirs was 140 percent above normal and nearly double that of the 30-year median.
The only reservoir that wasn’t filled was Roosevelt Lake, which topped out at 76 percent in April.
Over the past six years, runoff has averaged 280,000 acre-feet per year.
Charlie Esther, SRP’s manager of Surface Water Resources, said this year’s runoff was good but not great.
“The drought cycle isn’t over, but we did have a very productive winter – the best winter since 2010,” he said in a release.
“In fact, if some of the larger storms we had early on in January and February would have dropped more on the Salt River side than the Verde, we might have even filled Roosevelt Lake this winter.”
As of this this month, the reservoirs are about 68 percent full, up nearly 50 percent from this time last year.
SRP credited the jump in reservoir levels to a very wet January and February.
The National Weather Service said Phoenix received 2.28 inches of rain during the first two months of the year and February was a full four degrees cooler on average than last year.
Snowpacks in January were as high as 200 percent above normal.
KTAR News’ Jim Cross contributed to this report.
