Photos Show Boat Disappear as Lake Mead Water Levels Rise

A previously sunken boat has vanished beneath the surface of Lake Mead, a recent marker of the lake's improving water levels.

After years of drought, Lake Mead, which is located in Nevada and Arizona, reached drastically low levels last summer, but the water levels have started to rise after the West Coast's wet winter. Levels will continue to rise as snowpack melts throughout the summer. As of Monday, Lake Mead water levels were at 1,056 feet, nearly 14 feet higher than they were in July last year. The lake is still approximately 12 feet below 2021 levels.

Levels have since started to recover not only because of the record precipitation. In April, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation released a vast amount of water from Lake Powell into Lake Mead.

As water levels began to recover this year, startling photos of the lake's state compared with last year have spread across social media. One of the most recent examples showing the rising water levels is a photo of the lake reclaiming a previously sunken boat after the drought exposed it.

Although improvement is still needed, the steadily rising levels are starkly different from last year when the levels neared dead pool, which means a reservoir's water is so low it can no longer flow downstream. This past Friday, one Twitter user showed a visual example of the improvement, tweeting a photo comparing the same Lake Mead location on June 30 of this year to a photo taken in September 2022.

In the latter, low water levels exposed a parched shoreline and revealed two previously sunken boats. The photo from June 30 showed a shocking difference. Much higher water levels had covered the lower of the two boats, with only one of them still visible.

"Same location at Lake Mead. September '22 vs yesterday. 2 abandoned boats (previously sunk) visible on shore in left pic. Only one boat visible in right pic," Twitter user @normalzzrex wrote with the two photos.

In the same thread, the Twitter user also tweeted a different photo comparison showing how water levels were much higher on an island in Lake Mead, compared with the previous year.

AccuWeather meteorologist Grady Gilman told Newsweek that mountain snowpack is still at over 100 inches at the highest elevations. As the snow melts throughout the summer, Lake Mead's levels are expected to continue rising.

"The majority of the relief coming that is increasing water levels is from the runoff of snowmelt. We had a well above average snowfall in the West this past year," Gilman said.

Even so, the lake is still roughly 80 feet below its average levels over the past two decades.

At its lowest point last year, Lake Mead was at 1,040 feet. Dead pool occurs at 895 feet for the lake. Full pool is at 1,229 feet. Although heavy precipitation and snowpack melt will continue to improve water levels, more improvement is needed.

Ongoing droughts and overuse have led to a slash in water usage for three Colorado Basin states. Despite a winter of heavy precipitation, experts have told Newsweek that the only way for Lake Mead and Lake Powell to truly recover is if Colorado River Basin states reduce their usage.