Videos of waterfalls supplementing low levels at Lake Powell have abounded on social media, with some users implying that Tropical Storm Hilary's rainfall benefitted the reservoir.
As a tropical storm, Hilary formed early last Wednesday and intensified into a hurricane by Thursday morning. It strengthened to a Category 4 early Friday morning with sustained wind speeds at 140 miles per hour. Winds weakened before the storm hit Baja California as a Category 1 hurricane over the weekend.
The storm has since weakened further into a tropical storm as it moved to inland California. Meteorologists had previously warned that heavy rainfall accompanying the storm would become life-threatening, especially in California desert areas like Palm Springs and at Death Valley National Park. The storm has already flooded desert areas, such as at Death Valley, and rain has aided in Lake Mead's water levels, which saw a .16-inch increase since the storm arrived. Lake Mead also was in a flash flood risk zone, according to a map from the National Hurricane Center (NHC).
The rise in water levels was cause for celebration, considering that drought has plagued the region for years and caused Lake Mead water levels to fall critically low. Lake Powell is in a similar situation, but videos claiming that Lake Powell's water levels are rising from rains associated with Tropical Storm Hilary are false.
Lake Powell's water levels have been falling since July, according to the graph from Lake Powell Water Database. The lake has fallen .3 inches since the start of the weekend when the storm began battering the region.
It appears that the videos shared across social media on Monday were from early August when a separate storm unleashed rain on Lake Powell.
"Lake Powell Storm 2023!" TikTok user bwiggy50 posted on August 4 with the video.
However, on Monday, several accounts on X, formerly Twitter, shared the same video with the inaccurate information that Lake Powell was "currently experiencing heavy rain from Hurricane Hilary."
"Lake Powell did not receive much of any rain from Hilary at all," AccuWeather senior meteorologist Bob Larson told Newsweek.
Larson added that during the late summer months, monsoonal rain can impact Lake Powell and that was what the video captured in early August.
Although the videos don't depict what's currently happening at Lake Powell, several areas in the region have encountered severe rain from the tropical storm. Death Valley National Park was closed on Sunday because of flooding, and Palm Springs, California, was forecast to receive as much as 20 times its average monthly rainfall.
Rain associated with Tropical Storm Hilary has since moved northward, with portions of northeastern Oregon forecast to receive up to 4 inches, according to a report by the NHC.
Despite its downward trend, Lake Powell is still in a drastically improved condition over last year. A wet winter on the West Coast helped supplement the water levels, and snow melt throughout the spring and summer has continued to aid in the lake's recovery. The reservoir has recovered more than 30 feet over its levels in April, according to data from the Lake Powell Water Database site.
Update 03/22/2023, 3:22 p.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from AccuWeather.
