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Reservoir managers face a balancing act each spring: draw water levels down too far ahead of snowmelt and a dry year leaves communities short by summer; keep levels too high and a wet year risks overtopping spillways during flood season. Traditional rule curves, fixed by historical averages, assume next year resembles the past. Increasingly, agencies instead use forecast-informed operations, which fold in real-time snowpack and precipitation data to adjust release schedules week by week. Early adopters report modest gains in both flood safety and water supply reliability, though the approach demands denser sensor networks and closer coordination between hydrologists and dam operators than the old fixed-curve method ever required.