Highs are staying in the low 50’s for the rest of the week with sunny skies expected for the weekend.
Highs today ranging in the low to mid 50s in parts of the valley, calm winds, at about 10mph. Tonight, partly cloudy skies.
Daytime highs today reaching around 53 degrees with light winds. Tonight mostly clear skies with lows around 33 degrees. For the rest of the week similar conditions.
A new forecast for the Colorado River says the outlook for the coming year is bleak. The National Weather Service predicts the river will flow at about 54% of its average volume from April to July. That’s when the river usually swells with snowmelt from the Rockies and other ranges, but precipitation this winter has been well below normal across the region. There’s still plenty of time for conditions to improve. The river basin tends to accumulate much of its snowpack in January, February and March. Lake Mead ended 2017 almost 2 feet higher than a year ago, as use of Colorado River water by Nevada, Arizona and California hit its lowest level since 1992. The lake can use all the help it can get. Its surface has dropped more than 130 feet since drought started in 2000. Projections for the lake are almost certain to get worse.