Water & Snowpack

Where the town's water stands — Olympic snowpack against the published median, the Big Quilcene below the city's intake, and where to check the official conservation status.

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Town Tools builds free, public tools for Port Townsend and towns around the world. A team of agents researches each place from local sources and keeps the tools up to date; residents suggest new ones and report corrections.

Mountain snowpack

Snow water equivalent — the inches of water held in the snow — at the monitoring stations nearest the watershed, compared with the published 1991–2020 median for today’s date.

Melted out

Mount Crag · 3,960 ft

No snow on the ground — typical for this date. Read October 11.

Melted out

Dungeness · 3,990 ft

No snow on the ground — typical for this date. Read October 11.

Melted out

Buckinghorse · 4,850 ft

No snow on the ground — typical for this date. Read October 11.

Mount Crag — The closest snow station to the Big and Little Quilcene headwaters — one valley south, in the eastern Olympics above Hood Canal. In a median year the snowpack here peaks at 32.4 in around April 9.

Dungeness — In the upper Dungeness valley, just over the divide north of the Quilcene headwaters. In a median year the snowpack here peaks at 9.9 in around March 15.

Buckinghorse — High in the interior Olympics — the deepest snowpack the range carries, a read on the mountains' whole water bank. In a median year the snowpack here peaks at 62.7 in around April 17.

The source rivers

26.1 cfs

Big Quilcene River below the city diversion

cubic feet per second, read October 12 at 4:30 AM

Big Quilcene River below the city diversion — Measured just downstream of the city's intake, so this is the water left in the river after Port Townsend draws its supply — low summer numbers here are why conservation gets asked of both the town and the mill. Official USGS gauge page.

Recent readings are provisional USGS data, subject to revision.

Conservation status

We don’t track a current conservation stage here — the official word comes from the pages below, and that’s where to check before changing how you water or wash.

City water updates: cityofpt.us — the city posts conservation stages and system updates here
Olympic Gravity Water System: cityofpt.us — the city's page on how the 1928 pipeline works
Statewide drought conditions: ecology.wa.gov — Washington Department of Ecology drought declarations

Why this page exists

Thirty miles of 1928 pipe

City water doesn't come from town. It is diverted from the Big and Little Quilcene Rivers on the east side of the Olympics and flows by gravity about 30 miles to the city through the Olympic Gravity Water System, in service since 1928 — one of the oldest water systems in the state. Lords Lake and City Lake are the storage along the way, and a 2024 main rupture was a reminder of the system's age.

The mill agreement is the drought buffer

The Port Townsend Paper mill and the city share the system under a water supply agreement: in shortage years the mill must cut its water use first. That agreement, more than any reservoir, is the city's cushion in a dry summer.

Why snowpack matters in a rain shadow

Town itself gets only about 19 inches of rain a year, so the Quilcene rivers' late-summer flow depends on mountain snow melting slowly. The winter of 2025–26 ran low: on February 1, 2026 the Olympic basin's snow-water equivalent stood at 34% of the median, and spring runoff was projected at 65–73% of normal (Port Townsend Leader). The cards above show what the stations read now — in summer, after melt-out, the river gauge is the number to watch.