Journal Wednesday, September 23, 2026
Late September: Floriston at 622 acres is on the NIFC map
A daily record of the Truckee basin as of Wednesday, September 23, 2026. Same honesty rules as Today's Pulse. Forecasts stay labeled.
As of Wednesday, September 23, 2026. Permanent URL.
Today's Pulse that day
It's late September, and Floriston is still burning on the Truckee at the California-Nevada line.
Fires in that canyon do not usually cloud the river the day they start. Rain or snow on the burn scar later is what washes ash into the channel.
After the next storm, the live turbidity meter is the watch. That is not a tap-water emergency today.
Floriston is 622 acres and 96% contained as of Monday, September 21 at 11:31 AM 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.
The Sierra snowpack is only a trace (up to 0.3 in of water in the snow).
Tahoe sits at 6,227.01 ft, 2.09 ft under the legal ceiling, 4.01 ft above its 6,223 ft natural rim, high enough to spill into the Truckee. Pyramid Lake's USGS surface reading is 3,802.04 ft, the terminus.
Tahoe City outlet 76 cfs; Farad 502 cfs, water 56.8°F; the Truckee at Reno is in line with typical for this date, at 118% of the historical median; that 10-year median for this date is 337 cfs against a latest daily 397 cfs; Reno turbidity 14.5 FNU; Farad turbidity not reporting a usable live value. Today's river flow at Reno is higher than anything recorded on Sep 21 in the site's 10-year archive.
The four upstream reservoirs hold 63% of listed capacity, Stampede carrying most of that volume.
NWS River Forecast Center outlook, not the USGS gauge: the Truckee at Reno is expected to stay near 378 cfs through Sunday, September 27 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.
Reno weather: 67°F, 0 mph wind, with air quality rated Moderate: acceptable for most people, though sensitive groups may notice it.
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 recorded 2 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.