Journal Saturday, September 19, 2026
Mid September: Floriston at 627 acres is on the NIFC map
A daily record of the Truckee basin as of Saturday, September 19, 2026. Same honesty rules as Today's Pulse. Forecasts stay labeled.
As of Saturday, September 19, 2026. Permanent URL.
Today's Pulse that day
It's mid September, and Floriston is 627 acres and 25% contained as of Friday, September 18 at 3:05 PM PDT on the NIFC perimeter.
Floriston is the Farad Powerhouse reach, USGS site 10346000. Farad is also the USGS turbidity series on this reach; that series is not reporting a usable live value, so Reno's meter is the one this site can watch today. Wildfire on this corridor does not usually change river water the day it starts. The documented pattern, from the 2024 Gold Ranch Fire on the same stretch of Truckee, is that rain or snow later washes ash and sediment off the burn scar and turbidity spikes. https://foxreno.com/news/local/truckee-river-water-quality-could-be-impacted-due-to-gold-ranch-fire-experts-say The Truckee at Reno is in line with typical for this date, at 109% of the historical median. The USGS catalog shows a cluster of 8 events near Silver Springs, Nevada over the last 7 days, the kind of aftershock sequence that can follow a larger Walker Lane quake. That shaking is not a water reading. A late August Drought.gov status update for California and Nevada noted that evaporative demand, the thirst of the atmosphere, can stay high even when water-year precipitation is near normal.
TMWA's established response to that kind of sediment is to lean on groundwater and other off-river sources rather than treat degraded river water. CAL FIRE's engine and water-tender counts are not a live feed here, and that page does not say which hydrant, reservoir, or river those tenders draft from.
Floriston is 627 acres and 25% contained as of Friday, September 18 at 3:05 PM PDT on the NIFC perimeter. Floriston is the Farad Powerhouse reach, USGS site 10346000. Farad is also the USGS turbidity series on this reach; that series is not reporting a usable live value, so Reno's meter is the one this site can watch today. Wildfire on this corridor does not usually change river water the day it starts. The documented pattern, from the 2024 Gold Ranch Fire on the same stretch of Truckee, is that rain or snow later washes ash and sediment off the burn scar and turbidity spikes. https://foxreno.com/news/local/truckee-river-water-quality-could-be-impacted-due-to-gold-ranch-fire-experts-say TMWA's established response to that kind of sediment is to lean on groundwater and other off-river sources rather than treat degraded river water. CAL FIRE's engine and water-tender counts are not a live feed here, and that page does not say which hydrant, reservoir, or river those tenders draft from. Source: NIFC WFIGS current perimeters, https://data-nifc.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/nifc::wfigs-current-interagency-fire-perimeters/about. CAL FIRE incident page (not the same clock as NIFC GIS acres): https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2026/9/16/floriston-fire.
There is no Sierra snowpack at the monitoring stations yet this season.
This snapshot does not include Lake Tahoe.
Tahoe City outlet 75 cfs; Farad 502 cfs, water 61.7°F; the Truckee at Reno is in line with typical for this date, at 109% of the historical median; that 10-year median for this date is 323 cfs against a latest daily 351 cfs; Reno turbidity 23.3 FNU; Farad turbidity not reporting a usable live value.
This snapshot does not include Upstream reservoirs.
NWS River Forecast Center outlook, not the USGS gauge: the Truckee at Reno is expected to stay near 374 cfs through Wednesday, September 23 at 5:00 AM PDT. Source: https://water.noaa.gov/gauges/TRRN2.
Beach postings are a separate clock from the river. Tahoe has a recreational HAB advisory on California's map: Caution at Lake Tahoe Community College (Trout Creek), Caution at Site 13 (Tahoe Keys Lagoons), and Caution at Star Harbor (Lake Tahoe). That posting is a beach warning for swimming and pets, not municipal tap water.
This snapshot does not include Reno air and weather.
U.S. Drought Monitor: worst of Reno, Tahoe, and Pyramid Lake is D1 Moderate Drought. Reno D1 Moderate Drought; Lake Tahoe D1 Moderate Drought; Pyramid Lake D1 Moderate Drought. That map updates weekly. A late August Drought.gov California-Nevada update noted that evaporative demand can stay high even when water-year precipitation is near normal. Independence Lake: The upper 28 ft is owned and operated by TMWA as Reno–Sparks’s drinking-water drought reserve.
No active NWS warnings or advisories for this basin. That is a reading, not a missing feed.
The ground keeps its own count. The USGS catalog shows no earthquakes in the region over the last 24 hours.
None of those lake and river numbers is a tap-quality reading. Reno and Sparks drinking water is treated river water. TMWA's published annual mix is 85–95% surface water and about 15% groundwater from 82 wells. Chalk Bluff is the main plant, 90 MGD. This site has no live tap-quality feed. This site has no live well-level feed. TMWA's mix includes about 15% from 82 wells, mainly summer peaks and backup.