About Colorado River Monitor
An independent dashboard tracking water levels, drought conditions, and shortage updates across the Colorado River system.
What This Is
Colorado River Monitor is a free, publicly accessible tool that aggregates official water level data from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) and presents it in a clear, up-to-date dashboard. We track 10 reservoirs across the Colorado and Rio Grande systems, including Lake Mead, Lake Powell, and eight others critical to water supply across the American Southwest.
Why It Exists
The Colorado River is in crisis. Since 2000, the region has experienced the worst megadrought in over 1,200 years. Reservoir levels that once sat near capacity now hover near historic lows, and mandatory federal water cuts have forced difficult choices for states, cities, and farmers across the Southwest.
Official data exists — but it's scattered across agency portals, buried in spreadsheets, and hard to interpret at a glance. This site exists to make that data accessible to anyone who wants to understand what's happening.
How It Works
Reservoir levels are fetched directly from the USBR public API — the same source used by federal water managers.
Reclamation publishes one reading per reservoir per day, usually for the previous day. The site checks for new readings every hour and shows the date of the reading on every page.
Percent full, storage in acre-feet, the change over seven days and over a year, the ten-year high and low, and a storage-weighted system figure. No forecasts: every number is arithmetic on Reclamation readings.
A weekly digest goes out on Mondays with each reservoir's level and the week's change. Double opt-in, one email a week, unsubscribe any time.
Credits
Reservoir storage, inflow, release, and elevation data: U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (public domain). Reservoir outlines on the dashboard: © OpenStreetMap contributors, under the Open Database License (ODbL). Map tiles: OpenFreeMap and OpenMapTiles. Automated checks run daily against Reclamation's own published figures; see the FAQ for how every number is derived.
Disclaimer
This site is not affiliated with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, USGS, or any government agency. Data is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, always verify critical water decisions with official sources.
Get in Touch
Questions, corrections, or suggestions? Use our contact form. We read everything.