The data.
Colorado's water story across days, seasons, and decades: precipitation, drought, snowpack, rivers, and storage. Every plot is interactive and built from real public data — last assembled July 10, 2026.
From ridgeline to reservoir
A connected regional signal: statewide mountain snow, its five-day rate of change, the Colorado River near Cameo, and Lake Powell storage. Choose any water year since 1981 and move one cursor through every stage.
These are connected regional signals, not one tracked parcel or a closed water balance. The SNOTEL line is a statewide mountain index; the Cameo gauge includes regulation and diversions; Powell storage reflects the wider Upper Colorado Basin plus reservoir operations.
Jul 9, 2026: snow 0.0 inches, river 1670 cubic feet per second, Lake Powell 5.52825 million acre-feet.When the moisture shows up
Daily rain-gauge observations since 2000, distilled into storm pulses and the share of reporting stations that got wet. Switch scales from 90 days to the full record.
This is a changing agricultural-station network, not an area-weighted statewide estimate. Liquid gauges can undercatch snow; SNOTEL carries the winter story. “Widespread” is this site's explicit 20% network threshold.
Twenty-six years of drought
Every weekly U.S. Drought Monitor map since 2000, aligned by water year. A long record of conditions inspiring Coloradans to look at the windshield and announce: we needed the moisture.
Drought category over the water year
Percentage of Colorado's area in each U.S. Drought Monitor category, October 1 → now, area-weighted. Hover for the weekly breakdown.
D1–D4 91%
Snowpack
Statewide snow-water equivalent (mean of Colorado's SNOTEL stations) against the 1991–2020 normal and its usual range. This year peaked low and melted out early. The late-season median is now too close to zero for a meaningful percentage comparison.
The county map
Every county, every week: this water year by default, plus a lazy-loaded archive back to 2000. Drag the timeline or jump to a water year; press play to watch it spread.