Point layer · Water
SNOTEL snowpack data, next year's supply today
NRCS snow telemetry — next year's water supply, six months early.
Snowpack is the West's real reservoir, and SNOTEL snowpack data is the earliest read on next season's supply. Snow water equivalent in March tells you more about summer curtailment risk than any paper record does.
- Source
- NRCS
- Refresh
- Daily
- Geometry
- Point
- Included from
- Water ($99/mo)
Why SNOTEL Snowpack matters
Roughly two-thirds of western runoff starts as snow. A basin sitting at sixty percent of median in March is telling you about July's curtailment risk while there is still time to act on it. Nobody else in a water transaction is looking this far ahead.
Questions SNOTEL Snowpack answers
- What does next summer's runoff look like from here?
- Is this basin ahead of or behind its median snowpack?
- Should I underwrite this position assuming another short year?
What is in the SNOTEL Snowpack data
Coverage: Mountain SNOTEL stations across the western US. Source dataset: SNOTEL automated snow telemetry network.
| Field | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Snow water equivalent | Water contained in the snowpack — the number that converts to runoff. |
| Percent of median | This year's SWE against the station's historical median, the standard comparison. |
| Snow depth | Physical depth at the station. |
| Elevation | Station elevation, which governs how early it melts out. |
How we serve SNOTEL Snowpack
Stations render at the shared marker size with percent-of-median driving color, and stations reporting nothing carry the explicit unknown tone. Values are pulled daily and cached, with the last successful pull surfaced on the layer.
SNOTEL snowpack data — source, refresh and coverage
- Steward
- NRCS
- Dataset
- SNOTEL automated snow telemetry network
- Refresh cadence
- Daily
- Coverage
- Mountain SNOTEL stations across the western US
- Records
- 507 rows
- Geometry
- Point
- Included from
- Water ($99/mo/mo)
Who uses SNOTEL Snowpack
Water Rights Investing
Price seniority, spot the mismatch between paper water and wet water, and find positions before they are listed.
Agriculture & Ranching
Know what your water is worth, how safe it is this year, and what your neighbors hold.
Government & Basin Management
A statewide inventory, live supply monitoring, and a public-facing record without building the platform.
Energy Development
Route corridors, site generation, and clear the environmental picture before the first landowner call.
Read SNOTEL Snowpack alongside
Drought Monitor
US Drought Monitor severity by county — the year's supply risk, mapped.
Reservoirs
Storage capacity and current levels across western reservoirs.
Stream Gauges
Live USGS streamflow — what is physically in the river right now.
Watershed Basins
USGS hydrologic unit boundaries — the unit water is actually managed in.
Terms used on this page
See SNOTEL Snowpack on the map
This layer is included from Water ($99/mo) upward, alongside every other layer in the Water coverage.