Data sources

Water rights and administration

• Colorado Division of Water Resources (DWR) — HydroBase via CDSS. Active and historical administrative calls, structures and WDIDs, decreed water rights, diversion records, DWR stream and reservoir telemetry, water districts. CDSS REST services · active calls · dwr.colorado.gov
• Colorado water courts (via DWR). Water court resumes — monthly notices of applications in each division. dwr.colorado.gov
• Interstate compacts. Compact texts and records for the Colorado, Rio Grande and Arkansas rivers. Colorado River · Rio Grande · Arkansas
• Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB). Water planning, basin roundtables and state programs. cwcb.colorado.gov

Streamflow and reservoirs

• USGS Water Services (NWIS). Instantaneous streamflow every 15 minutes, daily statistics (the daily medians behind percent of median), groundwater levels. waterdata.usgs.gov
• DWR reservoir and stream telemetry. Storage and flow at state-operated stations. CDSS
• U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Storage and releases at federal reservoirs (Reclamation hydrodata and RWIS). usbr.gov
• NOAA National Water Prediction Service. River stage forecasts and flood categories. water.noaa.gov
• NOAA Colorado Basin River Forecast Center. Runoff and water supply forecasts for the Colorado River system. cbrfc.noaa.gov

Snow, drought and climate

• NRCS SNOTEL. Daily snow water equivalent and 1991–2020 medians at mountain stations. National Water and Climate Center
• NOAA SNODAS. Modeled snow cover and SWE on a grid. NSIDC
• U.S. Drought Monitor. Weekly drought categories by county. droughtmonitor.unl.edu
• NOAA climate data and Climate Prediction Center. Climate records and seasonal outlooks. NCEI · CPC
• National Weather Service. Active weather alerts. weather.gov
• Open-Meteo. Current weather, forecasts and reference evapotranspiration at each division's reference town. open-meteo.com

Agriculture and land

• OpenET. Satellite-based evapotranspiration (crop water use). openetdata.org
• CoAgMet. Colorado agricultural weather stations. coagmet.colostate.edu
• USDA CropScape. Crop type by field from the Cropland Data Layer. CropScape
• USDA NRCS and CWCB programs. Conservation and cost-share programs. CWCB
• Irrigated lands (DWR). Mapped irrigated parcels by division. CDSS
• USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset. Watershed (HUC) boundaries. USGS WBD

Water quality and environment

• EPA Water Quality Portal. Water quality samples. EPA
• EPA Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWA). Public water systems and violations. EPA SDWIS
• Other EPA datasets. Toxics Release Inventory, RCRAInfo and EJScreen. epa.gov
• Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE). State air emission permits (APEN) and other environmental records. cdphe.colorado.gov
• National Interagency Fire Center. Active wildfire perimeters. nifc.gov

Also available to Ask BasinMind

For specific questions, Ask BasinMind's tools can also read: USGS groundwater levels and StreamStats; CoCoRaHS volunteer precipitation reports; USDA NRCS soil survey data (Soil Data Access); USDA NASS Quick Stats and AMS Market News; the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers National Inventory of Dams; FEMA's National Flood Hazard Layer; NASA Earthdata, including FIRMS fire detections; EPA air quality data; species occurrence records from GBIF; and CDPHE solid-waste and landfill records. Each answer names the sources it actually used.

How sources are cited

Every figure on a BasinMind page carries its source and date. Ask BasinMind cites the sources it used in each answer, and when an answer does not name them, the agencies whose data it used are added at the end. How often each source is read, and how stale data is labeled, is on the Methodology page.

The data belongs to the agencies that publish it. Real-time values are provisional and can be revised by the agency. BasinMind is advisory: confirm water rights and administration with Colorado DWR.