Dillon Dam · Blue River · CO
Dillon Reservoir
Denver Water's biggest pool, on the WEST side of the divide — its water reaches the city through the Roberts Tunnel, and the state's own telemetry reports its storage daily. No public elevation series reports here; the percent stands alone.
Water surface elevation
no reading
Water in storage
177,748 acre-feet
Colorado DWR telemetry, daily · daily value, Sep 2
Share of capacity
69.1% full
against the published figure capacity figure (Denver Water published figure)
This month in the record
lower than 95% of the 19 Septembers on record
monthly mean storage; record low 71,952 acre-feet (1999), record high 289,325 acre-feet (1988)
30-day trend
-474 af/day
storage, 2026-07-31 → 2026-08-30; over the year -132 af/day. Measured change, not a forecast.
Drought at the dam
D4 — Exceptional drought
US Drought Monitor at the dam's coordinates, released 2026-08-27; the feeding basin can differ.
69.1% full
of capacity, by storage (published figure figure, Denver Water published figure).
No public elevation series reports at this dam — there is no water line to draw, and this desk does not invent one.
Snowpack in the feeding basin
Measured across the South Platte headwaters above Dillon.
Snow season
typically Oct 14 – Jun 6
0.1 in on the ground, 2026-08-31; median peak 17.9 in around May 2
Last winter's verdict
48% of median peak
water year 2026 — the snow that fed this year's pool
5 highest active SNOTEL stations in the basin (Hoosier Pass, Loveland Basin, Buckskin Joe, …), NRCS AWDB REST (SNOTEL), station set pinned 2026-08-31. Daily snow-water equivalent against the stations' own 30-year medians; off season the percent is withheld rather than divided by zero.
Storage against capacity
Monthly mean storage in acre-feet, zero baseline. The dashed line is the published figure capacity figure (Denver Water published figure) — sedimentation slowly shrinks real capacity. Storage can legitimately rise past a conservation-pool line when the flood pool is in use.
See the numbers as a table
| Month | Mean storage (acre-feet) | Days gaged |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 2026 | 185,904 | 30 |
| Jul 2026 | 199,152 | 31 |
| Jun 2026 | 204,428 | 30 |
| May 2026 | 199,381 | 29 |
| Apr 2026 | 197,604 | 30 |
| Mar 2026 | 196,800 | 31 |
| Feb 2026 | 198,081 | 28 |
| Jan 2026 | 200,558 | 31 |
| Dec 2025 | 202,928 | 30 |
| Nov 2025 | 206,764 | 30 |
| Oct 2025 | 212,041 | 31 |
| Sep 2025 | 219,688 | 30 |
| Aug 2025 | 233,177 | 31 |
| Jul 2025 | 248,625 | 31 |
| Jun 2025 | 247,399 | 30 |
| May 2025 | 218,988 | 31 |
| Apr 2025 | 208,698 | 30 |
| Mar 2025 | 205,695 | 31 |
| Feb 2025 | 206,237 | 28 |
| Jan 2025 | 208,390 | 31 |
| Dec 2024 | 211,156 | 31 |
| Nov 2024 | 215,445 | 30 |
| Oct 2024 | 223,186 | 31 |
| Sep 2024 | 239,096 | 30 |
Most recent 24 months shown.
Where these numbers come from
Readings at Dillon Reservoir are the measuring agencies' own: each value above names its source (USGS gage, Bureau of Reclamation daily record, Army Corps project data, or this desk's committed copy) and its observation time in the reservoir's own time zone. The capacity figure is the published figure Denver Water published figure number; sedimentation slowly shrinks real capacity, so the vintage travels with the percent.