Cole County, MO Water Table Trend
Cole County, MO: what the water table is actually doing
Cole County's representative monitoring well shows depth to water declining faster than most declining counties, a fitted trend of 4.4 ft per decade over 17 years of readings.
This is one representative well, not a county-wide survey, the same grain limit every page here discloses.
Cole County's source well, in detail
Depth to water at the last reading was 179 ft below land surface. Readings span 2009-03-26 to 2026-05-13, 45 measurements from USGS well MO005-383226092054001 (Jefferson City East), part of the National Water Information System. The qualifying bar and the OLS fit behind this trend are documented in the methodology guide.
How Cole County compares nationally
Cole County sits at rank 1288th of 1,449 ranked counties, ordered rising-to-declining, so a low number means a rising water table and a high one means fast decline. Cole County, Missouri is home to about 77,625 people. See the fastest-moving counties guide for how Cole County stacks up against the most extreme cases nationally.
If you own a well in Cole County
A dropping water table means a residential pump has to reach deeper and work harder, which shortens its life. In Cole County, that trend is real, not assumed: 4.4 ft per decade over 17 years.
Depth and quality are separate questions
This page answers a depth question, not a quality one. A well in Cole County can be stable in depth and still worth testing for quality, or declining and still test clean, the two are measured separately, and only a direct test settles the second one.