How to Use This Report

What is this report?

Instead of combing the internet and clicking a million links to learn about water supply in Sheridan County, let us do the work for you! This report compiles many trustworthy sources into an easy-to-read and access report. It includes information about streamflow, snowpack, drought, soil moisture, and precipitation for both the Tongue and Powder Rivers. This report is a one-stop shop for information that can help you be aware of water in Sheridan to make decisions for your ranch and your land.

Helpful Hints:

• All forecasts have the word forecast underlined in the page's title.
• Each page has a little blurb at the top that gives you some helpful information.
• If you would like to know more about a topic, check out the sources at the bottom of the page!
• Sources are precise and bring you as close as possible to the original source.

Table of Contents

Drought Index and Change
Drought History and Forecast
Precipitation - Tongue River
Precipitation - Powder River
Reservoir Capacity and Stream Flow
Select Stream Flow Stations
Tongue Water Supply Forecast
Powder Water Supply Forecast
Temperature and Precipitation
Temperature Forecast and Precipitation Forecast
Vegetation Drought Responses and Soil Moisture

Drought Index and Change

The U.S. Drought Monitor gives you a broad overview of the drought conditions in the US. Its strength is bringing together many ways of determining drought. It is useful as a large-scale view of drought, but local drought resiliency efforts are not considered.

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Sources:

​https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Maps/MapArchive.aspx​
​https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Maps/ChangeMaps.aspxhttps://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Summary.aspx​

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Drought History and Forecast

The first half of this page details drought conditions in the last year to today, followed by the seasonal outlook. This forecast provides a prediction of whether drought is expected to persist, improve, or develop over the coming month, helping local producers and residents anticipate changes in water availability.

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Sources:

​https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?fips_56033​
​https://www.drought.gov/forecasts​
¹https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/expert_assessment/mdo_summary.php

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/expert_assessment/mdo_discussion.php​
​https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Summary.aspx​

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Precipitation - Tongue River

These graphs represent precipitation affecting the Tongue River. Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) represents the amount of water contained within the snowpack when it melts.

Sources:

​https://nwcc-apps.sc.egov.usda.gov/awdb/basin-plots/POR/WTEQ/assocHUCwy_8/tongue.html​
​https://nwcc-apps.sc.egov.usda.gov/awdb/basin-plots/POR/PREC/assocHUCwy_8/tongue.html​

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Precipitation - Powder River

These graphs represent precipitation affecting the Powder River. Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) represents the amount of water contained within the snowpack when it melts. 

Sources:

​https://nwcc-apps.sc.egov.usda.gov/awdb/basin-plots/POR/WTEQ/assocHUCwy_8/powder.html​
​https://nwcc-apps.sc.egov.usda.gov/awdb/basin-plots/POR/PREC/assocHUCwy_8/powder.html​

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Reservoir Capacity and Stream Flow

The total capacity of reservoirs and current water storage includes inactive storage below the outlet.

Lake DeSmet

Water storage level is at 200,937 ac/ft. Total Capacity if 234,987 ac/ft. The lake is 85.5% full.

Reservoir	Total Storage (Acre-ft)	Current Storage (Acre-ft)	Percentage of Total Capacity (%)
Bighorn	4,624	1,975
Cross Creek	824	260
Dome Lake No. 1	1,506	1,354
Kearney Lake	6,324	3,575
Park Lake	10,362	4,813
Sawmill	1,275	653

Tongue River Reservoir

Water levels have increased to 66,680 ac/ft. The reservoir is 84.3% full.

This graph displays the real time data of the Tongue River Reservoir. This data remains provisional until it is officially reviewed due to variables that can affect the gages. These include but are not limited to algal and aquatic growth, sediment movement, malfunction of recording equipment, and back water from ice or debris such as log jams.

Sources:

Lake DeSmet Operating Department at lakedesmet@johnsoncowy.us​
​https://seoflow.wyo.gov/Data/Map/Parameter/Total%20Storage/Location/Identifier/Interval/Latest​
​https://gis.dnrc.mt.gov/apps/stage/gage-report/location/3f087fe86bde421f857dfedff4e40e93/1680476400000-1683154740000​

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Select Stream Flow Stations

These graphs provide context for streamflow percentile classes. The selected USGS stream gages are located near the state line, with Montana representing the downstream end of the Tongue and Powder Rivers within our region. Reported flow values represent the average seven-day flows. The vertical axis is logarithmic, meaning each major tick mark represents a tenfold (10×) increase.

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Sources:

​https://waterwatch.usgs.gov/index.php?id=mv01d​
​https://waterwatch.usgs.gov/?id=wwchart_sitedur&ofmt=plot_mvbg&site_no=06306300​
​https://waterwatch.usgs.gov/?id=wwchart_sitedur&ofmt=plot_mvbg&site_no=06324500​

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Temperature and Precipitation

Temperature and precipitation are large drivers of changes in drought conditions. As you might expect, high temperatures and low precipitation can worsen drought conditions while low temperature and high precipitations can improve them.

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Sources:

​https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/tanal/temp_analyses.php​
​https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/Global_Monsoons/American_Monsoons/NAMS_precip_monitoring.shtml​
​https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/expert_assessment/mdo_discussion.php​
​https://www.weather.gov/byz/daily_records?city=Sheridan​

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Temperature Forecast and Precipitation Forecast

Explore the link for an interactive map that displays the percentage chance of above- or below-normal conditions for any point in the United States. 

​https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/long_range/lead14/interactive/index.php​

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Sources:

​https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/​
​https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/long_range/lead14/interactive/index.php​
​https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/expert_assessment/mdo_discussion.php​

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Vegetation Drought Responses and Soil Moisture

The graphs below present two ways of visualizing on-the-ground conditions. The Vegetation Drought Response Index (VegDRI) uses satellite data to estimate vegetative stress. Soil moisture is also a valuable indicator. Because soil acts like a moisture bank, it can buffer short-term drought degradation or improvement. Soil moisture also represents the water available to plants and is therefore closely linked to vegetative stress.

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Sources:

​https://vegdri.unl.edu/Home/VegDRIQuad.aspx?WY,2​
​https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/Soilmst_Monitoring/US/Soilmst/Soilmst.shtml​
​http://www.wrds.uwyo.edu/Soil/SM-Ptile-Current.html​

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Additional Resources

These are the broad sources we got information from. These websites are trustworthy and are reliable sources for additional information. In the future we hope to add more source for additional information.

• https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu
• https://www.drought.gov
• https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov
• https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/wcc/home
• https://waterwatch.usgs.gov
• Lake DeSmet Operating Department at lakedesmet@johnsoncowy.us
• http://dnrc.mt.gov/divisions/water/projects/tongue-river
• https://seoflow.wyo.gov/Data/Map/Parameter/Total%20Storage/Location/Identifier/Interval/Latest
• https://vegdri.unl.edu/Home/VegDRIQuad.aspx?WY,2