Climate intelligence for the great outdoors.

**A Nation of Water Extremes: From Parched Reservoirs to Swollen Rivers**

The American heartland faces a deepening water crisis as major reservoirs sink to critically low levels while rivers surge with unprecedented flows. Kansas reservoirs tell the starkest story: Tuttle Creek Lake holds just 516,600 acre-feet against a 1.08 million average, Milford Lake sits at 444,300 versus its 1.14 million average, and Perry Lake has dropped to 259,600 from 893,000—all hovering near half capacity. This pattern extends across the Southern Plains, with Oklahoma's Lake Hudson at barely half its normal 620,000 acre-feet and Texas reservoirs including Eagle Mountain (175,000 vs. 648,000), Bridgeport (318,800 vs. 827,000), and Choke Canyon (57,370 vs. 201,000) in severe deficit. Conversely, Texas has seen dramatic flooding with Toledo Bend Reservoir swollen to 4.26 million acre-feet—25 times its average—while Lake Eucha in Oklahoma exploded from near-empty to 68,690 acre-feet. The dichotomy extends to California's Lake Havasu, running twelve times above normal at 588,400 acre-feet.

Meanwhile, major river systems are experiencing extraordinary high flows that threaten communities and disrupt commerce. The Ohio River at Old Shawneetown crests at 259,000 cubic feet per second, while Florida's St. Johns River pushes 152,000 cfs through Jacksonville. Arkansas's White River system shows sustained flooding at multiple gauges, and the Mississippi River runs high from Minnesota southward. These conditions align with recent flash flooding that turned Green Bay streets into rivers and caused Bear Creek near Evergreen, Colorado, to wash out bridges. As wildfires in Utah blanket Southwest Colorado with smoke and the McCauley Fire forces evacuations in New Mexico's Sandoval County, the Southwest grapples with dual extremes—severe drought conditions straining water supplies while isolated storms trigger dangerous flash floods across a 700-mile swath of the Central U.S. Outdoor recreation faces widespread disruption, from depleted fishing lakes across Kansas and Oklahoma to dangerous river conditions throughout the Mississippi and Ohio valleys.