No, the headline is not a set-up for a joke, wisecrack or sneer about panicky zealots. It’s a simple statement of the situation on which Tony Heller of Real Climate Science has prepared a video explaining the background and the scale of the problem. And yes, you could say that we are taking this one more seriously than we otherwise might because Heller is well-known for debunking climate scares, whereas if the story were only appearing in say the New York Times or Scientific American we’d be inclined to chalk it up as yet more alarmist hysteria. But not this time. First of all, the US west is, historically, drought-prone. Second, in the postwar years Americans build several large cities out in the desert, like Phoenix and Las Vegas, and began drawing heavily from underground aquifers and surface rivers to supply them. Hence it makes sense that a water crisis could arise. And that time appears to be upon us, or rather them.
Heller’s video begins with a satellite view of north Phoenix, which appears to our inexpert eyes to be very brown and dry. Yet it is here that big tech companies already operate large semiconductor factories that require massive amounts of water, and they are proposing to expand these operations in the years to come. Heller also shows how Lake Powell water levels are way down compared to photos from 1989.
From there he opens up a web-based tool he developed called Visitech.AI which allows users to access and analyze large amounts of climate data, mostly but not exclusively from the US, and he uses it to show what has happened with western US precipitation. The worst drought in Colorado happened in 2002. Around that time Colorado flipped from predominantly wet conditions to dry and drought-prone conditions. A lot of people moved to the region expecting the relatively wet conditions to persist, but they have not. (Creating artificial lakes to allow more humans to move in than the ecology could sustain was called “progress” in the 1950s, though it doesn’t appeal to current progressives and there at least they have a point.)
The video then focuses on Lake Powell and Heller shows how, as of February when he made the video, lake levels were dropping about two feet per week, with water flowing out at twice the rate it is flowing in.
Normally the spring melt would replenish the water levels. But currently (a term here meaning as of February 2026), snow pack was only 50 percent of average in many places in the west. Yes, while the east was getting walloped with one of the coldest and snowiest winters on record, snowfall was well below average in many parts of the US west this year. UPDATE: the current snow-water equivalent readings are here, and show that levels remain critically low, at less than 16 percent of the long term median values in many important river basins.
Heller then discusses the way US states compete for water supplies and have built tunnels and channels to redirect flows among regions. He warns that unless the weather changes dramatically, there will be “water wars” between states this summer.
It appears to us, not being experts in US Southwest water management, genuinely to be a looming crisis. And we appreciate that Heller’s analysis was focused on data and facts, without dragging in speculations about climate or trying to argue that the crisis would never have happened if only we had built more windmills. For those of our readers in the US Southwest, be forewarned that you may be in for a dry and difficult summer until and unless the weather changes.
Not, be it noted, until we humans change the weather.
