How in the world will that be sustainable, and who is going to insure those homes??

Colorado is experiencing a HUGE spurt of growth. Everywhere I drive, I see tons of license plates from Texas, Florida, Arizona, California......and it is NOT tourist season............

The 30 million people who depend upon the Colorado River system are in for a rude awakening in the not so distant future. I give the state at most 20 years before it all begins to unravel.

You are a whole lot more optimistic than I am. At the rate the temperatures are rising, and the moisture is diminishing, at most I will give it ten.

The past few years, a few massive late spring snow storms are all that saved those downstream Colorado River folks......

All of us Colorado life time skiers and winter mountaineers have all commented that those two activities are heading for demise in the soon to be future years.......

LOL, it is January, and we are still having intermittent RED FLAG wildfire warnings along the front range mountains......Wow

Hang in there MM, and try to stay safe!

For fear of being taken for a climate change fanatic. But I have to agree with you - in ten years time Colorado and the rest of the West will very likely be facing severe water shortages. I live in the southwestern part of our state which has been severely impacted by rising temperatures and decreasing rain. The lack of snow on the San Juan mountains and the La Platas is just downright scary.

I agree that Colorado is warming up considerably this past 10-15-20 years. Especially the eastern part of the state which needs huge amounts of irrigation water for crops...... However, our mountain snowpack continues to be the the only thing that allows Phoenix, Las Vegas, and parts of SCal, to even be populated, and survive.......

That having been said, Lake Mead and Lake Powell are at their lowest levels EVER since they were originally filled, due to the Colorado Snow pack runoff being smaller every year.......And the levels have continued every year to decline.....

If the water level in Lake Mead gets low enough, they will have to shut off the Hydro electric generators that supply Vegas.....
Imagine a dark Vegas, with no air conditioning.......

Interesting that we here in Colorado, home of the massive Colorado River, have been under serious "water restrictions" for decades now, and downstream, they are just now starting to instigate somewhat minor water restrictions in Major cities along the Colorado River. When you fly out of Phoenix, just look down and look at the 30?-40?-50? green, irrigated golf courses, and the swimming pools in every back yard, along with all the green residential lawns.....LOL
The Governor of Arizona, or Mayor of Phoenix a year or two ago, at the end of summer pleaded with the governor of Colorado to please send them more water right away, they were running out. LOL.......what????? Do they just think Colorado "manufacturers" the water at will???????LOL LOL LOL In the meantime, both Vegas and Phoenix, as well as SCal just keep developing and developing and developing to increase their economy and tax revenues......

On a side note, I have been watching Florida which is being flooded with Northerners and MAGAots. Their potable/fresh water supply is increasingly in serious threat from salt water intrusion into the declining aquifer, their fresh water underground "water table" being depleted from overuse, further every single year....Beyond this, add in the Hurricane damage, and flooding damages which are radically increasing every year. That, along with the inability to insure structures, which interrupts development of any kind, residential or commercial, and a Humongous Crisis is just around the corner for all of Florida.......

any residents posting here.

by everyone on the Colorado River. The pact is an agreement by everyone from the high rockies to the Mexican border how much their share of the water is for use.

Like 3-4-5 years ago, I remember reading that they found Phoenix was using close to twice what they were allocated, to guarantee their ability for massive expansion and developments in the Phoenix area. Evidently it had been going on for years.

No Water......No developments,........... especially the residential sprawl, which takes a whole big bunch of water....

G.O.P. lies will not stop reality from happening.

have you ever been to Wyoming in the Winter, or tried to talk to anyone living there, given the highest population of Republicans of any state????

But this topic is about the changing climate and as climate change moves North... Wyoming just might gain a growing season and some precipitation.

I would spend a month each summer, since I was 18, in late August fly fishing on the North Platte near Saratoga.
The best thing was that by that time, the mosquitoes, the size of birds, had mostly died off......LOL

Is there a way to search by county, do you know?

The counties are sorted alpha by state.

Will try on my PC.

is looking better

5 years ago, I stopped buying tree seedlings for my land from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and our County Soil and Water Conservation district, which they propagate from local tree populations.

Instead, I started buying seedlings from the Missouri DNR, grown from populations hundreds of miles south of Minneapolis. And I mean I buy and plant HUNDREDS of seedlings, from dozens of species.

At the same time, I started buying tree seeds as well to grow hundreds more trees, from Iowa, Missouri, Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois. A lot I obtained from fellow gardeners off Facebook.

I'm terrified how well the species never before grown here are doing. Pawpaws, persimmons, peaches, bald cypress, pecans, flowering dogwood, silverbell, sweetgum, shingle oak, tulip poplar, redbud, osage orange, etc. 25 yr ago they wouldn't have lasted a winter, but now they're thriving. My land's species diversity looks more like Missouri than Minnesota at this point. I've actually started a small side business selling extra tree seedlings to fellow climate-aware gardeners.

The USDA map upgraded us to zone 5 last year, but I have a sneaking suspicion that we'll be zone 6 in just a few years at this rate.

Makes sense. You've got me curious. I'll have to look into USDA projections for myself.
(BTW, my personal fav is the Bald Cypress)

around me, also a lot of pin oaks. Both are good for the north tending "tree migration".

I've been collecting more acorns, leaching out the tannins, and eating the nut crops. Good stuff! To me the red oak groups mostly taste better than the white oak groups.

and has a map that overlays Georgia's climate onto NY state. They suggest, among other things, growing ducks and mushrooms together in forested areas.

Farming the Woods: An Integrated Permaculture Approach to Growing Food and Medicinals in Temperate Forests
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/farming-the-woods-ken-mudge/1120449161

China is putting in solar like there is no tomorrow but still building coal plants because of the need.
trump and GOP policies might slow solar and wind in the US. I hope not. Evidently in Texas only solar and wind are going in because it is cheaper.
I'll be almost 90, if I make it, in 2040. In time to see if we have done enough... I would bet no at this point in time.

and despite Western NC/E Tennessee's mild weather with low humidity and no excessive heat, these areas suffered unprecedented significant loss of topsoil on many acres of farms along creeks and rivers from the excessive rainfall from Hurricane Helene which will reduce crop production for years to come. WNC/TN is also now extremely vulnerable to wildfires if drought conditions occur later on, due to the extreme amount of fallen tree debris in all the extensive wooded areas and forest lands.

and not lose hope, though the fossil fuels economic interests will shortly have taken over the government, we don't have time for despair.

In Cormac McCarthy's The Road, he doesn't write how the world dies. But he describes a barren, grey, ash- and soot-covered planet where nothing grows. McCarthy intimates that the world burned/dried itself up. Survival is either scavenging or cannibalism and finding potable water is a challenge.

Below are scenes from the 2009 film which paralleled the book precisely: