DEVILS POSTPILE · good between 250 and 100 cfs on the gauge at the run
Wrapped: Jun 21 → Jul 02 — 11 days in the band
The window ran 11 days on 48% snow. Late May teased under 250
first — a mid-June warm-up took it back out; the real come-in was Jun 21.
Our call
April 1 said
early June — off the thin snow alone, 11 weeks out
June 1 said
Jun 22 — with the spring's burn rate priced in, 3 weeks out
River did
Jun 21 — a day ahead of the call, after a late-May
head-fake we didn't chase
How this season played out
The wiggle is real — 15-minute USGS data; the melt wave rolls through overnight
up here, high around 3am, low in the evening. The late-May dip under 250 was a head-fake — a
mid-June warm-up pulled it back out before the real come-in on Jun 21. Gray dash = the
median year (2010–2025). Season starts Jun 1 here; May readings on this run are noise.
Why we called it
Snowpack was 48% of normal — thin, and a warm spring (+2°C over normal)
burned it fast. Everything pointed early.
Hot mid-June re-flooded the band. Warm days mean more melt, not less water —
that Jun 8–18 bump is a heat wave propping the river back over 250. When the pack ran out, it
fell straight through.
The gauge is at the run. No proxy math, no conversion — what 11224000 reads
is what you have.
What goes into this call — and where to check it yourself
Every season since 2009 on this gauge — it's young, and so is the model
Track record — every call since 2016
year
we said
river did
miss
2016
Jun 21
Jun 16
5 early
2017
Jul 31
Aug 07
7 late
2018
Jun 26
Jun 18
8 early
2019
Aug 06
Jul 31
6 early
2020
Jun 11
Jun 08
3 early
2021*
Jun 16
May 19
28 early
2022
Jun 05
Jun 14
9 late
2023
Aug 08
Aug 06
2 early
2024
Jul 02
Jun 30
2 early
2025
Jun 17
Jun 14
3 early
2026
Jun 22
Jun 21
1 early
Typical miss ≈ 5 days; worst 9 (2021* aside). "We said" = the June 1 call,
stated for your band. "River did" = the gauge dropping under 250 and staying under, June 1 on —
same May-noise rule as the Kings. Under the hood the model aims at a sharper landmark just below
the band and corrects the offset; we tried retraining straight onto 250 and it grades worse —
250 sits on a mushy stretch of the curve in big years.
*2021: dust on the snow. April said Jun 16; the gauge was under
250 by May 19 — four weeks early, the ugliest number on the site, and it stays up. Gone before
the season normally starts. Out of the averages, out of the training.
Wrapped for 2026 — the first 2027 call lands ~April 1
Snow survey drops, we run the model, you get the date. Four emails a year.
These are forecasts, not gauge readings — the river gets the last word.
Check the live gauge before you burn vacation days. Seen a run come in? Tell us —
every confirmation makes next year's call better.