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Carnero Creek

Division 3 · Water District 27
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Carnero Creek on the ground — the ditches, wells, reservoirs and gages of Water District 27 · clicktap anything for its record

Snowpack — no snow on the ground at 1 SNOTEL site — normal for the date; the snow year begins in October and typically peaks around April 8. Full snow & runoff picture — charts, forecast history and how the forecasts have verified →

Sites, exceedance bands and sources
SNOTEL siteElev (ft)SWE (in)Median (in)% of medianTypical peak
Moon Pass11110 0.00.0 — April 8 (6.8 in)

Snow-water equivalent and medians (1991–2020) from NRCS SNOTEL; seasonal volume forecasts from the NRCS National Water and Climate Center. Sites and forecast points are assigned to the district whose boundary contains them — snowpack that feeds this district can also sit in a neighboring headwater district. Toggle the Snow chip on the map above to see the sites.

Topology cross-check: 1 parent disagreement, 2 sizable streams not on this network (vs DWR's route framework — under review)

This flow network was built mechanically; DWR's Source Water Route Framework disagrees with it in the places below. Each row is a question a human reviewer has not yet answered — not an error verdict. Checked 2 streams, 1 agree. Know this water? Tell us →

StreamThis site routes it toDWR routes it to
La Garita Creek the mainstem Saguache Creek

Sizable streams DWR maps here that this network does not carry:

Mogotas Arroyo (8 mi) · Coolbroth Creek (5 mi)

Full diagnostic snapshot pending — this district's weekly-style report (system status, active calls, hydrographs, anomaly flags) is produced by the nightly rotation and appears here after its first run. The tabs above are live now.

Snow and runoff

Snow-water equivalent, WY2026

No snow on the ground — normal for the date; the snow year begins in October. The chart shows the full water year just ending.

SNOTEL siteElev (ft)SWE (in)Median (in)% of medianTypical peak
Moon Pass11110 0.00.0 — April 8 (6.8 in)

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 (2009–2026)

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 3 of the last 18 winters the snow never came — the pack peaked below 80% of its median. In 1 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. This year was one of the dry ones: the pack peaked at 46% of median.

The snow never came: 2012, 2018, 2026. The snow left early: 2022.

Computed by this site from 1 SNOTEL site’ full daily records (NRCS AWDB, back to 2009). 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.