SALT LAKE CITY — Due to an abnormally dry winter, Lake Powell on the Colorado River is on the brink of seeing its water levels temporarily drop below a critical threshold, threatening water supplies and hydropower in the region.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced that water levels at Lake Powell will likely fall 2 to 3 feet beneath the critical target level of 3,525 feet in elevation this month due to “a very dry January and February” that eroded the Colorado River Basin’s snowpack.

Last week, Lake Powell’s water level had already fallen to 3,526 feet in pool elevation, just 24% of capacity and nearly at the critical level.

The agency predicts water levels in the lake will recover temporarily later this spring — most likely in May — as the runoff season progresses, but the year’s overall outlook remains grim.

“This year, the Colorado River Basin has experienced extremely variable conditions with a record high snowpack one month, followed by weeks without snow,” said Reclamation Acting Commissioner David Palumbo. “This variable hydrology and a warmer, drier West have drastically impacted our operations, and we are faced with the urgent need to manage in the moment.”

Lake Powell and nearby Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, have been draining at alarming rates over the past year.

These two reservoirs, fed by the Colorado River watershed, are part of a river system that supplies water to more than 40 million people across seven Western states and Mexico. Both reservoirs provide drinking and irrigation water across the vast region, including to many farms.

Last year, Arizona Farm Bureau President Stefanie Smallhouse expressed her concern that the impending water shortage in Lake Mead would mean some Central Arizona farmers in 2022 would “lose access to nearly half of the water on which they now rely to grow food and fiber for Arizona’s families.”

That prediction is close to becoming reality, and Powell is now following Mead on the trajectory to a serious water shortage.

Lake Powell’s plunging water level also threatens the Glen Canyon Dam’s ability to produce hydropower.

Water managers have been working to prevent worst-case scenarios from materializing.

According to a statement from Reclamation, the agency, along with the Upper Division States and the Upper Colorado River Commission, have taken “proactive” measures to protect Lake Powell’s target elevation — first, by sending an additional 161,000 acre-feet of water from Blue Mesa and Flaming Gorge reservoirs to Lake Powell in 2021, and second, by temporarily reducing monthly releases from Glen Canyon Reservoir to keep enough water in the lake.

For now, however, plans are at a standstill.

“Reclamation is not planning to take further action to address this temporary dip below 3,525 feet because the spring runoff will resolve the deficit in the short term,” Reclamation Upper Colorado Basin Regional Director Wayne Pullan said in a statement.

However, Pullan said Lake Powell is projected to drop below the critical elevation 3,525 feet again later this year. If that happens, Pullan said Reclamation will be poised to take “additional actions” as needed.