While some Utah and Wyoming rivers are overflowing their banks, flows in many Arizona rivers are hovering well below normal.
From the San Pedro and Santa Cruz rivers in Southern Arizona to the Salt and Verde rivers north of Phoenix, flows are diminishing as they often do in the June dry season鈥檚 peak. In Upper Sabino Creek on Mount Lemmon, flows look more like they do at the end of June than in early June, three or four inches of water are still running there.
But authorities aren鈥檛 worried about short-term impacts to drinking water supplies. That鈥檚 in part because many rivers had above-average runoff during the winter and early spring. But the region鈥檚 ongoing, continuing long-term drought continues to have water officials watching the weather carefully.
Some examples of the state鈥檚 diminished flows:
- On Upper Sabino, 鈥渇lows are starting to drop off real fast,鈥 said Michael Stanley, manager of the Mount Lemmon Water District, a government agency that delivers water to Summerhaven and vicinity. 鈥淲e鈥檙e right at the edge. If we鈥檙e don鈥檛 get rain at our normal monsoon times, we could get low flows. But I鈥檓 not going to cry wolf, because there鈥檚 still water in Carter Canyon and Sabino Creek.鈥
- Sabino Creek near Tucson, meanwhile, is running normal for this time of year -- dry.
- On the Upper San Pedro River near Sierra Vista, the Charleston gauge was running at 1.07 cubic feet per second Monday, compared to a long-term median flow of 3 cfs. On the Upper Santa Cruz near Tubac, Monday鈥檚 flow was .58 cfs, compared to a normal 2.2 cfs.
- Cienega Creek near Sonoita and Pantano Wash near Vail were running above normal -- Cienega very slightly so, and Pantano more than double the normal median flow.
- On the Upper Gila River and its tributaries including the San Francisco River, flows were below or well below normal near Clifton, Glenwood, New Mexico, and near Solomon at the head of the Safford Valley. They were above normal near Redrock and Virden, New Mexico, and near Morenci and Calva.
- Flows on the Salt River near Roosevelt Dam east of Phoenix were at 84 cfs Monday compared to a norm of 256 cfs. On the Verde River above Horseshoe Dam north of Phoenix, flows were 62 cfs compared to a norm of 95 cfs.
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鈥淚 wish they were higher of course, but we鈥檙e not too worried about it,鈥 said Charlie Ester, water resources manager for the non-profit Salt River Project utility in Phoenix. 鈥淲e got all of our runoff in January, February and early March, way above normal.鈥
From January 1 through May 31, the river system got a total of a million acre-feet of water, compared to a normal 600,000 acre feet, he said.
- On Lake Powell at the Utah border, total inflow into the reservoir this year is running about 114 percent of normal. Rivers feeding the lake were running 124 percent above normal on Monday.

