Wet Mountain Valley

Source Our computation, no independent reference · computed here from the screened DWR record Source Our computation, no independent reference · no independent reference; see /methods

This year, in context

In the weeks around 2026-09-27 (the newest reading on file), flows at the 3 ranked gages are running at a median 54% of their own long-term norm for this window — 3 below a typical year, 0 at or above. Driest relative to its record: TEXAS CREEK NEAR TEXAS CREEK, ranking 2nd lowest of 14 years.

Gage flow trend & changepoints

None of the 8 gages with enough record shows a significant trend or a detected shift — which is itself the finding.

No gage shows a statistically significant trend or changepoint yet.

8 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. 5 gage(s) and 343 structure(s) report in 2026, but structure reporting only reached half its modern level around ~1916. 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: 34% of 953 schematic-relevant structures. 4 year(s) clear the 30% coverage gate so far (1975–2023) -- 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 (2012–2026)

Mass-balance kinks computed for every summer month back to 2012 (77 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.

Groundwater now has its own tab: 224 monitored well(s), water-table trends, stream corridors, and the advisory depletion screen.

Reservoirs now has its own tab: 3 reservoir(s), end-of-year storage back to 1950, click-to-chart histories.

Cross-gage pattern fingerprint

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

Source Independent agency measurement · fetched 2026-10-16 · verify at NRCS report generator ↗ Source Our computation, scored against a reference · NRCS forecast, graded here against the gage record

Snow-water equivalent, WY2027

NRCS SNOTEL, daily. Sites are assigned to the district whose boundary contains them — the snow that feeds this district can also sit in a neighboring headwater district.

Two ways a snow year goes wrong (1992–2026)

A bad snow year here comes in two flavors (both called snow droughtA winter that shorts the snowpack. It happens two ways: a dry one, where the snow never comes, and a warm one, where near-normal snow falls but melts off weeks early -- and the river feels them differently.), and the river feels them differently. In 11 of the last 35 winters the snow never came — the pack peaked below 80% of its median. In 0 more, the snow came but left early — a near-normal peak melted out two weeks or more ahead of its usual date, sending the water down before the season needed it.

The snow never came: 1996, 2000, 2002, 2006, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2018, 2020, 2025, 2026.

Computed by this site from 1 SNOTEL site’ full daily records (NRCS AWDB, back to 1992). Each year is measured against each site’s own multi-decade median — not the 1991–2020 normal the chart above uses — so the 1980s grade against a fair baseline. Peak and melt-out need 85% of the season’s days on the record; thin years are dropped, not guessed. Derived from snow measurements alone — it cannot tell dry-from-warm causes apart, only what the snowpack did.

Runoff outlook — Grape Ck nr Westcliffe

NRCS's final issue (2026-06-01) calls it even odds that at least 2 kAF arrives over 06-01 to 09-30 — 25% of a normal season; almost certainly at least 0, probably not more than 6. Our own record at this gage shows 1 kAF actually delivered. New forecasts begin in January. How to read these numbers →

The record-adjusted April benchmark

NRCS’s April issue (2026-04-01) called even odds at 5 kAF over 04-01 to 09-30. Re-anchoring that number on this river’s own history — how its April issues have verified, the winter’s baseflow, and the district’s April 1 snowpack — moves it to 2 kAF. The river delivered 2 kAF.

Computed by this site — not an NRCS number, and shown only because it earned it: replayed over 69 past seasons here (1981–2025), never seeing the year it predicts, the adjustment cut the typical April miss from 40% to 38%. At points where it does not beat NRCS, no adjusted number appears. Coefficients are frozen each August; the model never changes mid-season. Method and honest limits →

How good are these forecasts here? (1980–2025)

Grading every April issue against what the river then delivered, measured at this gage’s own record — 44 seasons: the median miss of the 50% forecast is 40%, with a high bias of 15%, and the observed volume landed inside the stated 10–90% band 68% of the time (a calibrated forecast would say 80%).

Computed by this site: NRCS's archived April issues (their period as issued each year) against the observed volume in DWR’s published record; years with under 90% daily coverage are dropped, not summed. A grade of the forecast, never of the forecasters — these are hard rivers. How this point ranks among every graded Colorado forecast point →

What April snow has meant for this river (1992–2026)

Across 35 measured years, the season’s water has closely followed the April snowpack: a year opening April with 80% of median snow has typically gone on to deliver about 56% of a normal season (a snow-to-runoff elasticityHow strongly one number moves with another. A snow-to-runoff elasticity of 1.5 means a 10% shortfall in April snowpack has typically become a 15% shortfall in the season's water. of 2.1).

Computed by this site: the district’s April 1 SWE (% of each SNOTEL site’s own-record median) against the observed April–July volume at this gage (% of its median season) — a fixed window every year, unlike the forecast grades above, which use each issue’s own period. The slope is fit so single wild years can’t steer it (Theil–Sen, log space); years missing 10% of their days are dropped.

Source Our computation, no independent reference · computed here from the screened DWR record Source Independent agency measurement · fetched 2026-10-13 · verify at U.S. Drought Monitor ↗

Right now

This is the 16th-driest week 39 in 99 years of record at GRAPE CREEK NEAR WESTCLIFFE, CO. (as of 2026-09-21; this week’s flow sits at the 16th percentileRank against the record: a river at its 5th percentile is lower than it was in 95 of the past 100 years on this same date. for the date). On this week’s US Drought Monitor, Chaffee County is 75% in D4 exceptional drought (2026-10-13). The law agrees: the most senior active call leaves 0% of this district’s decreed flow rights junior to the calling right this week.

Every year since 1925, week by week

Each thin row is a year at GRAPE CREEK NEAR WESTCLIFFE, CO.; 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.

This year against its analogs

Over the 39 weeks recorded so far, 2026’s weekly trace most resembles 2018 (mean gap 9.8 percentile points; next closest 2025 (14.6), 1954 (15.0)). The analog’s remainder is drawn as context — its ending is what happened to it, not a forecast for this year.

The Drought Monitor’s view since 2000

Mean share of area in each class across Chaffee, Custer, Fremont counties — 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.

The law’s own drought gauge

When water runs short, administration answers: calls reach further back in time, and more decreed rights go junior to the calling right. This is that response, weekly since 2013 — the share of this district’s decreed flow rights junior to the most senior active call. Watch it spike in the named droughts below, and linger after the river recovers.

Computed from DWR’s call record (131 calls touching this district) against the district’s rights index. Scoping is deliberately coarse — a call’s own district, or districts named in its comments — and this is administration’s RESPONSE, not a per-structure verdict (each dossier’s curtailment card does that, with stream miles). A deepening call can also reflect growing demand, not only shrinking supply.

This basin’s droughts, by its own record

Detected mechanically: the 26-week smoothed percentile below the 30th for at least 20 weeks; recovered on regaining the 50th. The water-table clock compares each monitoring well against its own pre-drought median (the 3 years before onset) and dates the year the median well got back — the aquifer remembers longest, and “still below” is a finding, not a gap. The knobs are stated because the episode list depends on them — a different reasonable choice merges or splits episodes at the edges. Names are attached where an episode overlaps a drought Colorado already talks about.

When this basin claimed its water

Every bar is a year’s new appropriations (516 rights across 101 years of shared record), colored by that year’s wetness from the barcode above. Here the correlation is -0.11 — essentially no wet-dry pattern; here, law and settlement set the pace, not the weather. Across the state both behaviors exist: ephemeral southwest basins file after wet demonstrations, transbasin-source basins under drought — and the biggest statewide filing waves sat in the 1950s drought and after 2002, not in the wet 1980s–90s.

Appropriation dates are the CLAIMED initiation of a right, not the courthouse filing date; the record is survivor-biased (abandoned claims are absent, so failed dry-era scrambles are undercounted); and the big 1960s and 2000s spikes sit on legal events — the pre-1969-Act adjudication era and 2000s legislation — not on weather. A correlation here is a description, never a cause.

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.

Who serves it, who protects it

Two registers the site fetches on their own schedules, read for this district. Neither is a DWR record; each links its own page and its agency.

Public water systems here

Source Register of another agency · fetched 2026-10-06 · verify at EPA SDWIS ↗

1 system touch this district (1 community system reporting 1,950 people served, a figure that counts a wholesaler's customers twice); none carries an open health-based violation on EPA's record.

Instream-flow rights held by the state

Source Register of another agency · fetched 2026-10-11 · verify at CWCB instream flow program ↗

25 reaches over 93.4 miles and 31 natural lake levels, held by the Colorado Water Conservation Board so that water stays in the stream. Every reach, with its schedule and case →

• Texas Creek, 8.7 mi: 3.5 (11/1 - 4/30), 7.75 (5/1 - 10/31) cfs (appropriated 1998, 98CW0149) · dossier
• South Colony Creek, 7.0 mi: 4 (1/1 - 12/31) cfs (appropriated 1979, 79CW0132) · dossier
• North Lake Creek, 5.5 mi: 4 (1/1 - 12/31) cfs (appropriated 1980, 80CW0069) · dossier
• Lake Creek, 4.8 mi: 5 (1/1 - 12/31) cfs (appropriated 1980, 80CW0070) · dossier
• Middle Brush Creek, 4.6 mi: 1.5 (1/1 - 12/31) cfs (appropriated 1982, 82CW0153) · dossier
• North Brush Creek, 4.5 mi: 1.5 (1/1 - 12/31) cfs (appropriated 1982, 82CW0151) · dossier

and 50 more on the district's instream-flow page.

What the water is like -- USGS sensors right now, where it has been sampled, the impaired-waters list, and how the tap water here stands with EPA -- is on the Water quality tab.

Designated groundwater basins are on their own page.

Source Adjudicated record · verify at DWR water-right transactions ↗ Source Adjudicated record · verify at DWR net amounts ↗

Decreed rights on this network run from 1869-05-20 to 2021-07-19. Of the 20 structures with a yield estimate, the median one’s senior right was in priority 0% of a median irrigation season and 0% in a dry one. 25 abandonment screens and 329 compliance flags are listed below as leads for review — a screen is not an abandonment and a flag is not a violation.

Rights on file: 1263 across 1017 structure(s); 395 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 2003–2025, administration on this district has been tightening: 3 of 3 measures (days under callA senior water right demanding its water, which requires everyone junior on that stream to stop diverting until it is satisfied., calls set, seniorityColorado shares water by date: the earlier the right, the stronger its claim when the river runs short. "First in time, first in right." of the controlling call) are moving toward more administration, none the other way.

Why diversions stopped — call-based explanations

Sustained diversion stops matched to senior administrative calls.

• HARTBAUER DITCH NO 3 (1300505) DWR↗☆ stopped 2025-07-01 (31+ days) — call at LEWELLING-MCCORMICK curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• C B DITCH (1300551) DWR↗☆ stopped 2025-06-05 (11+ days) — call at LUCERO DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• WM KNUTH DITCH NO 11 (1300510) DWR↗☆ stopped 2025-05-18 (106+ days) — call at HOEHNE DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• HALF SECTION (1300506) DWR↗☆ stopped 2024-09-23 (230+ days) — call at HARDSCRABBLE DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• HARTBAUER DITCH NO 1 (1300503) DWR↗☆ stopped 2024-08-05 (276+ days) — call at CHILILI DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• O'GRASKE DITCH NO 1 (1300504) DWR↗☆ stopped 2024-08-05 (279+ days) — call at CHILILI DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• HARTBAUER DITCH NO 3 (1300505) DWR↗☆ stopped 2024-07-18 (304+ days) — call at HOEHNE DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• HALF SECTION (1300506) DWR↗☆ stopped 2024-07-18 (46+ days) — call at HOEHNE DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• CLARA DITCH (1300515) DWR↗☆ stopped 2024-07-18 (106+ days) — call at HOEHNE DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• ARNOLD DITCH (1300517) DWR↗☆ stopped 2024-07-18 (106+ days) — call at HOEHNE DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• HARTBAUER DITCH NO 4 (1300538) DWR↗☆ stopped 2024-07-18 (304+ days) — call at HOEHNE DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]
• WALTER DITCH (1300543) DWR↗☆ stopped 2024-07-18 (106+ days) — call at HOEHNE DITCH curtailing 100% of its decreed rate [heuristic-strong]

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.

Abandonment radar (25 screens)

Absolute rights with 10+ years of no recorded diversions. Screens only — storage, alternate points, and plan operations can explain nonuse lawfully. And diversion REPORTING itself only reached its modern level ~1916 — idleness that begins before then may be unreported use, not nonuse (flagged † below).

• HALL DITCH NO 2 (1301059) DWR↗☆ (1876-05-20, 0.6 cfs decreed): last active 1930 — 95 years idle
• HILLSIDE DITCH (1301008) DWR↗☆ (1886-06-20, 3.3 cfs decreed): last active 1942 — 83 years idle
• H H TOMPKINS DITCH NO 3 (1300724) DWR↗☆ (1887-04-15, 1.0 cfs decreed): last active 1970 — 55 years idle
• MANNING SPRING NO 1 (1302016) DWR↗☆ (1911-12-31, 0.0 cfs decreed): last active 1970 — 55 years idle
• KEEPSAKE SPRING NO 1 (1302135) DWR↗☆ (1966-12-31, 0.0 cfs decreed): last active 1970 — 55 years idle
• HENRY DITCH (1300523) DWR↗☆ (1890-08-22, 2.5 cfs decreed): last active 1975 — 50 years idle
• MONITOR DITCH (1300529) DWR↗☆ (1887-06-01, 1.1 cfs decreed): last active 1975 — 50 years idle
• WM SCHULZ DITCH NO 4 (1300577) DWR↗☆ (1881-07-18, 0.5 cfs decreed): last active 1975 — 50 years idle
• CHARLEY DITCH (1300585) DWR↗☆ (1887-06-01, 0.4 cfs decreed): last active 1975 — 50 years idle
• J HILTMAN DITCH NO 1 (1300811) DWR↗☆ (1881-07-15, 0.2 cfs decreed): last active 1975 — 50 years idle

Compliance screens (329 advisory flags)

Screened 460 of 1017 structures with rights (474 have diversion history on file). A flag is a lead for expert review — augmentation plans, exchanges, and free-river conditions can make over-decree diversions lawful and are deliberately not modeled.

• RISSER & LOCKE DITCH (1300630) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 400.0 cfs (max 400.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 5.0 cfs across 19504 recorded day(s).
• PIROTH DITCH NO 3 (1300671) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 376.4 cfs (max 515.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 0.6 cfs across 6928 recorded day(s).
• ELZE DITCH NO 3 (1300626) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 50.0 cfs (max 50.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 0.7 cfs across 5932 recorded day(s).
• WILLOW DITCH (1300519) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 40.0 cfs (max 40.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 0.6 cfs across 522 recorded day(s).
• BIG CREEK DITCH (1301197) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 30.0 cfs (max 30.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 6.0 cfs across 582 recorded day(s).
• C R H DITCH (1300623) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 20.0 cfs (max 20.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 1.0 cfs across 6147 recorded day(s).
• KELLING BROS DESERT NO 2 (1300525) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 15.0 cfs (max 15.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 5.0 cfs across 2822 recorded day(s).
• W A BELL DITCH NO 3 (1300848) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 10.1 cfs (max 10.1) exceeds total decreed absolute 9.7 cfs across 9745 recorded day(s).
• SMITH DITCH (1300855) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 10.0 cfs (max 12.3) exceeds total decreed absolute 9.4 cfs across 23404 recorded day(s).
• R KITZMAN DITCH NO 1 (1301053) DWR↗☆: Observed p99 daily rate 10.0 cfs (max 10.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 0.8 cfs across 2574 recorded day(s).

Seniority (top structures by decreed rate)

Recent inventory & legal-document changes

• 2026-10-10 — call set: FORT LYON CANAL (39703)
• 2026-10-10 — call set: JOHN MARTIN RESERVOIR (39705)
• 2026-10-10 — call released: 39701
• 2026-10-10 — call released: 39694
• 2026-10-09 — call set: FORT LYON CANAL (39701)
• 2026-10-09 — call released: 39660
• 2026-10-09 — call released: 39675
• 2026-10-09 — call released: 39659

Water-court filings this month (division-wide)

6 applications in the 2026-09 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 2026-11-30 (45 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.

The water itself, in this district

Four registers, each on its own schedule: what USGS sensors read right now, where samples have been taken, which stretches the state lists as impaired, and how the tap water of the systems here stands with EPA. None is a DWR record; each links its own page.

Right now

Source Provisional telemetry · fetched 2026-10-16 · verify at USGS current conditions ↗

No USGS continuous water-quality sensor reports from inside this district. Statewide sensors →

Where water has been sampled

Source Register of another agency · fetched 2026-10-08 · verify at Water Quality Portal ↗

The portal lists 6,859 sampling stations in this district's watershed (Arkansas Headwaters 11020001), of which 176 reported a sample in the last 5 years on the state and tribal side (USGS activity is in the station count, not in that figure). Most active: Colorado Dept. of Public Health & Environment-WQCD (79), Colorado River Watch (45), USGS Colorado Water Science Center (36). Most-sampled groups: Inorganics, Major, Metals, Physical, Biological, Counts, Inorganics, Minor, Metals. Every station as a file ↗

Results themselves are not fetched here; USGS samples added after March 2024 may not be in the portal's legacy profiles yet.

Drinking water

Source Register of another agency · fetched 2026-10-07 · verify at EPA SDWIS ↗

1 community system touch this district. None carries an open health-based violation on EPA's record. EPA sampled 0 of them for PFAS in 2023–25.

EPA's record carries violations and lead/copper percentiles; nitrate and disinfection by-product results are not in it. UCMR 5 samples are monitoring, not compliance, and the 2024 PFOA/PFOS limits equal its reporting limit, so any detection of those two is at or above them.

Impaired waters

Source Register of another agency · verify at EPA ATTAINS ↗

The state's 303(d) impaired-waters list has not been joined to this basin's own watershed boundary yet, so nothing is shown rather than a guess; the basins with a join carry the full list here. Why the join is geometry, not a name match.