California water conditions

Issued daily by NOAA (around noon PT). Shading shows the probability that the period is wetter/drier or warmer/cooler than normal. Click a map to open it full size.

Water-year-to-date precipitation (in) for DWR's 8-, 5- and 6-station indices. These drive the Sacramento and San Joaquin water year types.

Each reservoir is drawn as a tank: the water level shows how full it is, and the line shows the average level for today. The color and the label give storage as a % of that average. Shaded areas are DWR's three snow regions, colored by snowpack as a % of normal for today; badges give each region's % of April 1. Bigger tanks are bigger reservoirs. Tap any tank or station for details. Use the layers button to switch layers on or off.

Select a region to chart it. % of April 1 and % of normal are DWR's figures. The history lines average the same snow pillow stations DWR uses.

Hourly readings from DWR CDEC gauges, updated every hour. Monitor and flood stages are the NWS/DWR stage definitions for each gauge.

Reservoir data are Reclamation's daily (provisional) values; river flows are USGS hourly readings; snowpack averages the NRCS SNOTEL stations in the Upper Colorado basin (HUC 14). Dashed lines mark key levels. Lake Powell's 3,510 ft protection level is set by the 2027–28 operating guidelines (Aug 2026). Lake Mead's 1,075 ft line was the shortage trigger under the 2007 guidelines, which ran through 2026; for 2027 the new guidelines set a fixed 1.25 million acre-foot cut to Lower Basin deliveries. Reclamation post-2026 operations ↗