Click the link to read the article on the Steamboat Pilot & Today website (Suzie Romig). Here’s an excerpt:
March 27, 2025
State officials at the Division of Water Resources office in Steamboat Springs are predicting river flows and reservoir levels — which are key for agricultural, municipal and recreational uses — to land this year slightly below conditions of 2024. That means, based on current snowpack and water supply forecasts, the water season for 2025 should land about in the middle, or at median, of the past 34 years of record keeping of water flows down the Yampa River, said William Summers, water resources assistant division engineer in Steamboat…
Last year, Stillwater, Yamcolo, Stagecoach, Fish Creek and Elkhead reservoirs all filled to capacity. However this year, Stillwater, Yamcolo and Stagecoach reservoirs in southern Routt County “are a little uncertain, probably pretty close,” Summers said. The engineer noted Fish Creek Reservoir east of Steamboat Springs and Elkhead Reservoir on the border of Routt and Moffat counties “pretty much fill every year.”
[…]
The Yampa-White-Little Snake River basins currently sit at 101% of median snowpack water equivalent based on Natural Resources Conservation Service data from 1991 to 2020. The data is collected by eight area snow telemetry stations, or SNOTEL, that help forecast water supply and drought conditions. Looking more closely at individual SNOTEL stations on March 23, Dry Lake SNOTEL near Buffalo Pass registered 120% of median, while on the lower end Bear River SNOTEL by Stillwater Reservoir was at 95% of median.
