7 Shocking Satellite Images Reveal the West’s Megadrought

The megadrought hitting the western United States has yielded no shortage of repulsion stories to get down the juiceless season . Record heat last week hasseared in drought , turning the region from an already well - done steak into a charred Saratoga chip . Almond growers areripping up orchards , and 17 million endangered Salmon River are beingshipped to the seabecause rivers are too red-hot to navigate . repugnance stories abound .

But the toll of the megadrought is perhaps most visible in the state of reservoirs across the West , from California to Utah . Lake Mead hit a record Sir David Alexander Cecil Low , touch a level not seen since the Hoover Dam was construct . The image ofboat docks sitting on now - dry landare visceral , but so too are the country of the West ’s reservoirs from space .

The European Space Agency ’s Sentinel-2 orbiter has captured stupefying paradigm of the West ’s reservoirs . Earther has take snapshots from 2020 and 2021 of a number of reservoirs in California as well as Lake Mead and Lake Powell , the two largest manmade reservoirs in the West , which millions depend on . These scandalous images show how apace water supplies have deteriorated , and the risk of infection facing the region as the dry time of year ramp up .

Lake Oroville on June 3, 2020 and June 8, 2021, illustrating lower reservoir levels and the parched landscape.