Click the link to read the article on the Summit Daily News website (Jessica Sachs). Here’s an excerpt:
June 26, 2026
Water levels in the Dillon Reservoir have now peaked for the summer, having reached a maximum 80% capacity on June 17 before decreasing over the coming months. It’s a 19.5% drop — as well as an earlier peak — compared to last year, when water levels reached 99.5% capacity on June 27, 2025.
“Last year, we were about 1,000 acre feet from full,” said Nathan Elder, Denver Water’s water supply manager. “This year will be about 50,000 acre feet from full. So that’s a pretty significant amount down.”
Elder said that this is a “bottom-four or five year for Dillon Reservoir storage,” due to this winter’s record-low snowpack, but is still currently far from the lowest water levels that the reservoir has ever seen.
“The lowest level it got was about 35% full, and that was in the spring of 1978 that followed the really bad, really dry year of 1977,” Elder said, noting that 1977’s snowpack was actually higher than this year’s, despite resulting in lower water levels. “We’ve seen it lower again, following a low snowpack in 1981 and then also in 2002 going into 2003.”
Elder said that part of the reason levels have been able to hold steadier than in other drought-afflicted years is because of lower demand for the reservoir’s water, particularly from consumers on the Front Range.
“People are aware of the drought restrictions in place so far this year, compared to normal weather,” he said. “We’ve seen our demands down about 18% and we’ve seen a really large decrease in demand from the past drought in 2002.”
