Power generated from Northwest dams fell last year to lowest level in two decades

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Hydropower generated for electricity from Oregon and Washington dams fell to historically low levels last year, and experts expect it could drop further by year’s end.

Officials at the U.S. Energy Information Administration recently published data showing that hydropower generation in the Northwest between Oct. 1, 2022 and Sept. 30, 2023 dropped to a 22-year low.

Eleven Western states produce up to 60% of the country’s hydroelectricity. Washington, California and Oregon are the three largest contributors, with Oregon and Washington producing more than one-third of all U.S. hydropower.

Both Oregon and Washington generated 20% less hydropower in 2023 than in 2021. The agency attributed this to low precipitation in the fall and winter, and the May 2023 “heat dome” that drove regional temperatures up 30 degrees Fahrenheit above average and rapidly melted snowpack in the region, which traditionally feeds rivers and streams steadily throughout the summer.

https://washingtonstatestandard.com/2024/04/03/power-generated-from-northwest-dams-fell-last-year-to-lowest-level-in-two-decades/

[Mme. Defarge]

1. Could this explain why my water bill

has skyrocketed?!

[love_katz]

2. I have lived in the Pacific Northwest for my entire life. We're getting less rain.

I'm not a meteorologist, but I have definitely noticed that we get much less rain in the valleys and snow on the mountains during the fall-winter-spring cycle. I look at the satellite data just about every day. It looks like the Jet Stream has split, with the bulk of the precipitation going either north over the Puget Sound region, or it goes south and ends up flooding California and burying their mountains in huge amounts of snow. This creates environmental damage for everyone: flooding, mudslides and collapsing roofs from record amounts of snow, and salmon die off because our rivers are too warm. It also leads to an earlier wildfire season, airsheds that are so choked with smoke that we have to stay indoors and the recreational areas are closed due to insane levels of fire danger. Most of California is a desert and cannot cope with the increasing amounts of water, which thanks to global warming, tends to come in extreme weather events. We need our rain and snow to come home.