Reservoir Levels Screensaver
The Reservoir Levels screensaver shows real current storage for eight major Western US reservoirs — Lake Mead, Lake Powell, Shasta, Flaming Gorge, Trinity, New Melones, Navajo and Folsom — as percent-of-capacity gauge bars, read directly from the US Bureau of Reclamation's RISE API. It's free, needs an internet connection, and ESC exits.
How the Reservoir Levels screensaver works
Your browser reads each reservoir's daily Storage-af series from Reclamation's key-less, CORS-enabled RISE API, refreshing hourly.
Each bar is the latest storage divided by the reservoir's published full-pool capacity in acre-feet.
A small ◆ marker on each bar shows where that reservoir stood on the same date last year, from the same RISE series.
The eight RISE series IDs were verified against Reclamation's catalog; a reservoir simply drops off the board if its series stops reporting.
A worked example
In July 2026 the board shows Lake Mead around 27% full (about 7.1M acre-feet) with its year-ago marker higher — the lake gave up roughly a million acre-feet in a year — while Trinity Lake sits near 78%. In Multi-view it pairs naturally with other earth and climate boards.
Settings & tips
- Sort by orders the board by total storage or by percent full.
- Percent full uses each reservoir's published full-pool capacity — capacities are fixed constants, the storage is live.
- The year-over-year delta is real RISE data too: green means the reservoir holds more water than a year ago.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this real, current data?
- Yes — daily storage values from the Bureau of Reclamation's RISE API, usually current to within a day or two. The header shows the latest reading date.
- Do I need an API key?
- No. RISE is public, key-less and CORS-enabled, so your browser queries it directly.
- Does it work offline?
- No — it needs an internet connection to reach RISE; offline it shows a short notice.
- Is it free?
- Yes — free, no download, in your browser.
- Why these eight reservoirs?
- They're major Reclamation-operated reservoirs with reliable daily storage series in RISE — including the country's two largest, Mead and Powell. State-run reservoirs like Oroville aren't in RISE, so they're not shown.