As expected, Wickiup Reservoir has been emptied, all that currently remains is the Deschutes River in it’s historical river bed. The Bend Bulletin had a good story about it in today’s paper. Clearly, this is terrible news for farmers who rely on this water. That being said, look at the charts below for some perspective.

Here’s the latest graph for the flows below Wickiup. The river dropped from 1160 CFS on 9/13/20 at 6:15 PM to 576 CFS this morning (9/15/20) at 7:15 AM.

That’s a pretty dramatic drop, but not much different than what happened last year, just a week or so sooner.

Of course, if the drought does not end then things will keep getting worse. At the same time, the Middle Deschutes below Bend continues to be managed like a yo-yo. To bad fish can’t play with a yo-yo.