Reservoirs
Below normalElephant Butte Reservoir water level
Live reservoir storage and water level in Rio Grande basin, New Mexico
Data through Oct 15, 2026 · source last checked Oct 17, 2026 · page revised Oct 16, 2026
Cite
- Storage
About this data
- Source
- US Bureau of Reclamation RISE; California reservoirs via CA DWR CDEC
- Series
- End-of-day reservoir storage
- Geography
- Elephant Butte Reservoir water level
- Unit
- acre-feet
- Calculation
- Daily reading
- Last observation
- Oct 15, 2026
- Update frequency
- Daily
Now 94,701 af, 17% below the 5-yr median, 5% of capacity.
Elephant Butte storage stood at 94,701 af, up 238.1% month-over-month from 28,011 af. The reservoir sits 17% below the 5-year median while holding just 5% of capacity.
| Period | Current | Prior | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week over week | 94,701 af | 88,895 af | +6.5% |
| Month over month | 94,701 af | 28,011 af | +238.1% |
| Year over year | 94,701 af | 77,344 af | +22.4% |
| vs 5-yr median | 94,701 af | 113,862 af | -16.8% |
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Latest reading, Oct 15, 2026 | 4,295.96 ft above sea level |
| Change from a week earlier | +1.25 ft |
| Change from a year earlier | +3.91 ft |
| 5-yr median for the date | 4,299.77 ft |
| Below full pool | 111.04 ft |
| Five-year low | 4,275.13 ft (Jul 29, 2026) |
| Five-year high | 4,346.67 ft (Jul 1, 2023) |
| Measure | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Full pool elevation | 4,407 ft above sea level (top of active conservation pool) | USBR |
| Maximum depth at the dam | 197 ft | USBR |
| Surface area at full pool | 42,750 acres | USACE NID |
| Total capacity | 2,010,900 acre-feet | USBR |
Previous weeks
An earlier week
Elephant Butte Reservoir rose to 94,181 af, up 7.9% on the week after a sharp 238.2% monthly gain. Storage remains 17% below the 5-year median and stands at 5% of capacity.
Week of Sep 23, 2026
Storage jumped 74.7% week over week to 87,311 af per Bureau of Reclamation data, cutting the five-year median deficit to 23% in the first week of water year 2027. The gain substantially improves the carryover position for Rio Grande Project contractors after several weeks of deep deficits. The reservoir remains 23% below the five-year median.
Week of Sep 14, 2026
Elephant Butte storage stands at 27,873 af, 1% of capacity and 75% below the 5-year median. Year over year, storage is down 56.2%. The reservoir gained 2.4% month over month.
Week of Sep 2, 2026
Elephant Butte storage stood at 27,644 af, down 63% year-over-year. The reservoir sits 74% below the 5-year median and at 1% of capacity. Storage rose 2.6% from the prior month.
About Elephant Butte Reservoir
Elephant Butte Reservoir's water level is 4,295.96 feet above sea level as of Oct 15, 2026, 111.04 feet below full pool (4,407 feet), with 94,701 acre-feet in storage (5% of capacity). That is 1.25 feet higher than a week earlier and 3.91 feet higher than a year earlier.
Elephant Butte Dam impounds the Rio Grande in southern New Mexico, the principal storage reservoir of the Rio Grande Project. It is the largest reservoir in New Mexico, more than two million acre-feet at full pool. Reclamation dispatches its water for irrigation in the Rincon and Mesilla valleys and around El Paso, along with deliveries to Mexico under a 1906 treaty.
Total capacity is 2.01M af, over the past five years storage has ranged from 26,732 af to 570,686 af.
Elephant Butte Reservoir is one of the 21 major reservoirs this site totals each day. For the combined picture, western reservoir levels carries the storage of all 21 on one chart, which is the number to watch when the question is about the West as a whole rather than about this project.
Those figures describe the reservoir at full pool, not today. The chart at the top of this page tracks storage in acre-feet and the elevation table tracks the water surface in feet, so read storage against total capacity for how full the reservoir is, and the elevation against the full pool elevation and maximum depth for the size of the water column behind the dam. The two do not move together one for one: a reservoir narrows as it deepens, so one holding half its capacity still stands more than half as deep.
Sources: full pool elevation and maximum depth from the Bureau of Reclamation; surface area from the Army Corps' National Inventory of Dams; total capacity from the Bureau of Reclamation.
Below full pool, Reclamation's record for the dam lists two lower lines: the top of the inactive pool at 4,282.2 feet and the top of dead storage at 4,231.5 feet, 21.5 feet above the old streambed at the dam. Water below the inactive line is normally not available for release, and water below the dead storage line cannot be released by gravity at all.
This page carries the daily reading for the past five years. Reclamation's daily record at the dam runs back to March 1915, and why Elephant Butte Lake is so low charts the level at the end of every year since, with each year's low and high, the 1950s drought and the decline since 2000.