Sand Creek

Evolution of the network

This year, in context

In the weeks around 2026-08-17 (the newest reading on file), flows at the 1 ranked gage are running at a median 1% of their own long-term norm for this window — 1 below a typical year, 0 at or above. Driest relative to its record: SAND CREEK AT THE COLORADO-WYOMING STATELINE, ranking 1st lowest of 33 years.

Gage flow trend & changepoints

Of the 3 gages with enough record, 0 are trending down and 0 up, and 1 carries a detected shift. The other 1 show no clear signal either way. 1 transbasin gage meters imported or exported water — marked ⇆ below and kept out of these counts, because that flow is an operator's decision, not the basin's hydrology (all transbasin diversions).

Drought history, cost, and the four-century context moved to the Drought tab.

1 other gage(s) show no significant trend or changepoint (not shown).

How the measurement network itself changed

This basin was not always measured the way it is today — the API-era record is dense and recent, the early record sparse. 3 gage(s) and 2 structure(s) report in 2026, but structure reporting only reached half its modern level around ~1996. Every historical claim below is checked against this: long-term shifts that co-move with the growth of the network carry an explicit measurement-evolution caution, and abandonment screens whose idleness begins before the modern reporting era are flagged †.

Mass-balance (network closure) trend

Structure divrec-history backfill coverage as of the last check: 12% of 17 schematic-relevant structures. 0 year(s) clear the 30% coverage gate so far -- the trend activates automatically once qualifying years span a full decade. No action needed; the nightly backfill keeps extending the record.

Reach gain/loss shifts (–)

Mass-balance kinks computed for every summer month back to (0 reach-snapshots) — which reaches gain or lose water, and how that has shifted across decades. Each shift is cross-checked against the observation record above: as more diversions became metered, "unaccounted" water shrinks mechanically, which can masquerade as a hydrologic shift.

No reach shows a statistically significant long-term gain/loss shift.

Cross-gage pattern fingerprint

Not enough gages with a long enough common-coverage window yet to fingerprint shared patterns.

Right now

This is the 56th-driest week 29 in 91 years of record at DEADMAN DITCH NEAR DEADMAN PARK (as of 2026-07-13; this week’s flow sits at the 31st percentile for the date). On this week’s US Drought Monitor, Larimer County is 49% in D3 extreme drought (2026-09-01).

Every year since 1934, week by week

Each thin row is a year at DEADMAN DITCH NEAR DEADMAN PARK; each cell is one week’s flow ranked against the same calendar week of every other year — warm means dry for the date, blue wet, so seasonality cancels and droughts appear as warm bands. Gaps are missing record, never a dry river. Click a year to reconstruct it on the Historical tab.

The Drought Monitor’s view since 2000

Mean share of area in each class across Larimer county — the counties this district’s gages sit in, which overlap the district imperfectly. The Drought Monitor weighs soils, vegetation and local reports; it is CONTEXT beside the river’s own record above, not the water-rights picture.

What drought has cost here

Since 1991, federal crop insurance has paid $194,432 in drought-caused claims across Larimer county — 0.8% of all insured crop losses there. The worst year was 2017 ($39,168).

USDA crop-insurance indemnities where the recorded cause of loss is drought, summed over the counties this district's gages sit in. Counties overlap water districts imperfectly, and insured-crop claims are a floor on drought damage, not a total. Source: USDA RMA cause-of-loss files.

New to how a dry winter becomes a call on the river? Anatomy of a drought walks the chain in four minutes — snow to rivers to reservoirs to calls to the water table.

Decreed rights on this network run from 1879-06-01 to 2014-01-28. Of the 16 structures with a yield estimate, the median one’s senior right was in priority 13% of a median irrigation season and 0% in a dry one.

Rights on file: 16 across 16 structure(s); 0 structure(s) carry 0 court-case references. Advisory reading aids on public DWR data — not administrative or legal conclusions.

Is the river getting harder to divert from?

Over 1951–2025, administration on this district has been tightening: 2 of 3 measures (days under call, calls set, seniority of the controlling call) are moving toward more administration, none the other way.

Right yield — how often could these rights actually divert?

Share of irrigation-season days each structure's rights were not called out, derived from the 22-year district-scoped call record (senior right = floor, junior right = ceiling constraint). Call-record-derived; DWR's own analysis governs where available.

Seniority (top structures by decreed rate)

No inventory or legal-document changes detected since the daily watch began.

Water-court filings this month (division-wide)

16 applications in the 2026-07 resume for this basin's division — new rights, changes, augmentation plans — from the water clerk's statutory monthly notice (C.R.S. 37-92-302), the earliest public signal of a new claim. Filings are division-wide, not district-filtered: check the county column. Full resume PDF at the Judicial Branch →

Anyone affected may file a statement of opposition until 2026-09-30 (25 days left). C.R.S. 37-92-302(3): due by the last day of the second month following the filing month — computed, not legal advice; confirm with the water clerk.

If a call were placed at a given seniority, which structures in this basin would be out of priority, and how much of their decreed rate would be curtailed? Computed from this basin's cached decrees.

Pick a calling right

Real decrees from this basin, ordered by administration number — that is, by actual seniority. The years will look out of order, and that is correct: an administration number encodes the adjudication date as well as the appropriation date, so a right appropriated in 1970 can be administered ahead of one from 1950. A senior call curtails almost everything; a junior one curtails almost nothing.