Low snowpack drops Lake Mead forecast by 24 feet

"In December, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation was predicting a roughly 11-foot rise in Lake Mead over the next year. Now the bureau expects the nation's largest man-made reservoir to shed about 13 feet by January 2013" for a net forecast drop of 24 feet, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal. That's a reduction of nearly 2.5 million acre feet, due to poor snowpack.

Compare that to last year, when the snow melt led to a record rate of rise in the lake and its highest level in a decade. [Right, Lake Mead shoreline. Credit, National Park Service]