Little water remained in Arizona's San Carlos reservoir in late June 2026—less than 1% of capacity—due to very limited winter snow and spring runoff from the mountains upstream of the Gila River watershed. At capacity, the reservoir would be one of Arizona's largest lakes.
The natural color images above come from Landsat 8 and 9 and the Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 (HLS) project; they are overlaid with a data product from NASA's Observational Products for End-Users from Remote Sensing Analysis (OPERA). The OPERA Dynamic Surface Water Extent product maps Earth's surface water every few days at a resolution of 30 meters.
The bright blue on the images represents open water as observed on each date. The left image shows the reservoir on July 25, 2023, when the San Carlos reservoir was about 60% full, while the right image shows the same area on June 23, 2026, when the reservoir was 1% full. Swipe the center bar left and right to see the amount of water in the reservoir change between the two dates.
Learn more about Low Water at San Carlos Reservoir in the story from NASA's Earth Observatory.
Visit Worldview to visualize near real-time imagery and historical imagery from NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS); find more imagery in our Worldview weekly image archive.