It remains too early to say a whole lot about what to expect in the 2009-2010 water year on the Colorado River, but the odds of extra water to buck up Lake Mead are dropping. Last month, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation put the chances at 50-50 that there would be enough water in Lake Powell to spill extra, above and beyond the normal 8.23 million acre feet, down past Lee’s Ferry and into Lake Mead.

The December “24-month study report“, which lays out the current thinking, now puts the odds at a bit better than one in three that there will be enough water in Powell next year, based on the byzantine operating rules, to allow extra water to raise the levels of Lake Mead.