Lake Mead water level by year

Lake Mead's water level was 1,037.53 feet above sea level on Oct 15, 2026, 182.07 feet below full pool (1,219.6 feet). That is the lowest reading since the lake first filled in July 1941, and the lowest since April 1937, while the reservoir was still filling behind the new Hoover Dam.

The chart plots the water surface on the last day of each year, and the table lists every year with its low and high, newest first. Both come from Reclamation's daily record for Lake Mead at Hoover Dam, which begins on Feb 2, 1935, the day after the dam started holding back the Colorado River, with the new lake at 670 feet above sea level. There is a reading for every day since.

Filling the lake, 1935 to 1941

The reservoir rose fast. It passed 1,000 feet on Jun 12, 1936 and reached full pool, 1,219.6 feet, for the first time in July 1941. In more than 90 years of readings it has stood at full pool in only two years, 1941 and 1983.

The 1950s low and the Lake Powell fill

A run of dry years in the 1950s pulled the lake down to 1,083.23 feet on Apr 25, 1956, which stayed the lowest reading after the first fill until October 2010. The steepest drop of that era came from upstream. Glen Canyon Dam began holding back the river in 1963 to fill Lake Powell, and Lake Mead fell from 1,193.19 feet at the end of 1962 to 1,088.07 feet on Apr 3, 1965, a loss of 105.12 feet in a little over two years.

The 1983 high

Lake Mead climbed back through the 1970s and reached its highest reading on record, 1,225.83 feet, on Jul 24, 1983, 6.23 feet above full pool. It last stood at or above full pool on Sep 17, 1983, at 1,219.71 feet.

The decline since 2000

The lake ended 1999 at 1,213.94 feet and reached 1,214.41 feet on Feb 6, 2000, its high that year. It fell in most years after that, passed below the 1956 low in October 2010, and reached 1,040.58 feet on Jul 28, 2022, 173.83 feet below the February 2000 reading.

2023 and after

The 2023 snow year sent the lake back up. It ended 2023 at 1,068.05 feet, 23.23 feet above where it ended 2022, and kept rising to 1,076.62 feet on Mar 4, 2024. It has fallen since, ending 2024 at 1,063.29 feet and 2025 at 1,062.24 feet. In 2026 it dropped below 1,050 feet on Jun 1 and below the July 2022 low on Aug 6.

The latest reading is {{live:history/lake-mead:yearToDate}}.

Lake Mead water level carries the daily reading with storage in acre-feet, and Lake Powell shows the reservoir upstream whose releases supply most of Lake Mead's water.

How the lake's year changed shape

The low and high columns show that the lake's year has changed shape since Lake Powell went in upstream. In the 25 years from 1938 through 1962, before Glen Canyon Dam, the yearly low came between February and May in 22 years and the yearly high came in July in 15: the lake drew down through winter and filled when the spring snowmelt arrived straight down the river. The median gap between a year's high and low was about 36 feet.

Since 2000 the pattern runs the other way. In 22 of the 26 years from 2000 through 2025 the low came between June and December, and in 23 of them the high came between January and March, as the lake held its winter level and then drew down through summer and fall. With Glen Canyon Dam metering the river, the swing inside a year is smaller, a median of about 19 feet, and the long-run direction shows in the End of year and Change columns instead.

Worked example: what a foot of Lake Mead holds

The table counts feet, but water is counted in acre-feet, and the two do not convert at a fixed rate because the lake widens as it rises. Take the 2023 row. The lake ended 2023 at 1,068.05 feet, 23.23 feet above its 1,044.82 feet at the end of 2022. Reclamation's storage readings for those two days, Dec 31, 2022 and Dec 31, 2023, were 7,313,370 and 9,045,270 acre-feet, a gain of 1,731,900 acre-feet, or about 74,600 acre-feet for each foot of rise. That is roughly 564 billion gallons.

Near full pool, where the lake covers 162,700 acres, each foot holds more than twice as much. A 20-foot drop from a full lake therefore loses roughly twice the water of a 20-foot drop at the levels of the past few years, which is why the same row of the table can mean very different volumes in 1983 and in 2023. For what the pool elevations themselves mean, see full pool, dead pool and minimum power pool.