Before and after: the NWT’s incredibly low water

A two-year drought isn’t going away any time soon, the latest data from the Northwest Territories government suggests.

Water levels across Great Slave Lake, Great Bear Lake, the Hay River and Mackenzie River remain at or near record lows.

So far, there hasn’t been nearly enough rain this year to compensate for drought conditions that have gradually worsened since 2022.

In an update published on Friday, the GNWT included comparisons that use water monitoring cameras to show the exact same view, years apart.

Here are the views the GNWT published.

The first graphic shows the Hay River just outside the town of the same name in June 2022 and then in July 2024.

To the left of the images, you can see a scale of water level, in metres.

The GNWT’s graphic shows that the water level has dropped from 6.4 metres in June 2022, as illustrated in a water monitoring camera shot from that month, to 2.2 metres this month, as shown in a recent image.

It’s important to bear in mind that in 2021 and 2022, many parts of the NWT had higher water than usual as the territory completed an extraordinary swing from low to high water and back again. Some images from two or three years ago might show rivers at higher-than-average levels, rather than what might be considered ordinary.

Here’s the Mackenzie River at Fort Good Hope. The comparison shows a five-metre drop in water level over the past two years.

The Canadian Coast Guard said this week its vessels can no longer safely operate along the Mackenzie River and its network of navigational buoys cannot be maintained.

Mariners on the river have been warned to use extreme caution this summer.

The coast guard says it is watching developments to see when the river returns to navigable levels. In the meantime, the City of Yellowknife said one of the two coast guard vessels based in the NWT will dock in the city for most of the next week.

This comparison shows a drop of more than three metres in the water level at Norman Wells in the past two years.

This is the exact same camera and angle, even if the image doesn’t look much like it. A stretch of riverbed entirely submerged in 2022 is easily visible in 2024.

Barge deliveries along the Mackenzie, which are crucial for community resupply each summer in places like Norman Wells, have been scrapped this year. Some goods are being flown in at extra cost, while others will be delayed until the winter road season next January.

This is Strong Point, east of Fort Simpson, shown in 2021 and 2024. The Mackenzie in the area has dropped more than 2.5 metres in that time.

The accompanying images appear to the show the exposure of a sandbar in 2024 that can’t be seen in 2021.

Friday’s update from the GNWT also included graphs that track the water level at key locations over time.

Those graphs show water levels remain at record lows for this time of year on both Great Slave Lake and Great Bear Lake.

The light grey area in these graphs shows the minimum and maximum water levels on record for every year prior to 2023. The dark grey area is what GNWT hydrologists consider to be the average range.

The light blue line is how the water level changed in 2023. The dark blue line is the water level in 2024 to date.

Lastly, the update also included precipitation data.

The below two charts use what is known as a box plot. The blue dots show each community’s precipitation between April and July this year. The grey dots are figures for the same period in previous years. The boxes and thick black line represent the zone in which an average year might land.

While many NWT communities are still recording lower-than-average precipitation, the second chart suggests precipitation has been near or above average in communities where water drains north into the territory.

However, it’ll take significant extra precipitation – well beyond average – to begin addressing the effects we’re witnessing of the current drought. (Importantly, hydrologists have been clear that they attribute the low water levels to drought conditions and not to the effect of any southern dams.)

You can read the GNWT’s full July 5 update, including more data for other locations, on the territorial government’s website.

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