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Puget Sound Pulse

Water year 2026

How this year sits on the record

Trends is the decade view of snow and Cedar and Tolt flow. Live gauges and pillow cards live on Story. This page does not reprint those.

Every water year is compared against the ten years before it, so you can see whether this year is running wet, dry, or ordinary. Flow is the USGS daily river readings on the Cedar at Landsburg and the South Fork Tolt near Carnation. Snow is the average from two SNOTEL stations, as a percent of that date's historical median, the same measure as the Story snow chapter, tracked October to September.

Cubic feet per second (cfs) measures how much water passes a point every second. One cfs is about 7.5 gallons — roughly a large cooler’s worth — moving by each second.

The shaded band is the range this measurement covered over the prior ten years, not a forecast. The vertical scale reaches toward the high and low of that window so today's line has a place on the record. Notes on specific years were written by hand, each with a source link.

This week on the ground

USGS recorded no earthquakes of magnitude 1 or larger in the Cedar–Tolt–Puget Sound region over the last 7 days.

Open the map to see locations. Story holds the cards for new M2.5+ events.

River flow

Cedar River near Landsburg · water year 2026

Scale includes the high and low of the prior ten years for each date, not only this year's line. A flood peak that would flatten the rest of the year is clipped so smaller days stay readable.

South Fork Tolt River near Carnation · water year 2026

Scale includes the high and low of the prior ten years for each date, not only this year's line. A flood peak that would flatten the rest of the year is clipped so smaller days stay readable.

Snowpack

Cascade snowpack versus a typical year · water year 2026

Scale includes the high and low of the prior ten years for each date, not only this year's line. A flood peak that would flatten the rest of the year is clipped so smaller days stay readable.

These charts are daily USGS and NRCS series for the Cedar, the Tolt, Chester Morse, and the two watershed pillows. They are not a forecast, and they are not another basin’s story.

Notable years