Reservoirs
Below normalLake Mead water level
Live reservoir storage and water level in Colorado (Lower) basin, Nevada / Arizona
Data through Sep 23, 2026 · source last checked Oct 1, 2026 · page revised Sep 24, 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
- Lake Mead water level
- Unit
- acre-feet
- Calculation
- Daily reading
- Last observation
- Sep 23, 2026
- Update frequency
- Daily
Now 6.84M af, 21% below the 5-yr median, 26% of capacity.
Lake Mead storage stands at 6.84M af, down 16.3% from a year ago and 21% below the 5-year median. The reservoir has shed 1.2% month over month and 0.4% on the week, holding 26% of capacity.
| Period | Current | Prior | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week over week | 6.84M af | 6.87M af | -0.4% |
| Month over month | 6.84M af | 6.92M af | -1.2% |
| Year over year | 6.84M af | 8.17M af | -16.3% |
| vs 5-yr median | 6.84M af | 8.71M af | -21.4% |
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Latest reading, Sep 23, 2026 | 1,038.06 ft above sea level |
| Change from a week earlier | -0.44 ft |
| Change from a year earlier | -18.63 ft |
| 5-yr median for the date | 1,063.77 ft |
| Below full pool | 181.54 ft |
| Five-year low | 1,038.06 ft (Sep 23, 2026) |
| Five-year high | 1,076.62 ft (Mar 4, 2024) |
| Measure | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Full pool elevation | 1,219.6 ft above sea level (top of joint use pool) | USBR |
| Maximum depth at the dam | 576 ft | USBR |
| Surface area at full pool | 162,700 acres | USACE NID |
| Total capacity | 26,120,000 acre-feet | USBR |
Previous weeks
Week of Sep 15, 2026
Lake Mead storage fell to 6.89M af, down 16% from a year ago and 21% below the 5-year median. The reservoir holds 26% of capacity. This month saw a 1.1% decline.
Week of Sep 2, 2026
Lake Mead storage stands at 6.90M af, down 14.8% year over year. The reservoir is 21% below its 5-year median and holds 26% of capacity. Month-over-month storage declined 2.0%.
Week of Aug 25, 2026
Lake Mead storage stands at 6.92M af, down 14.1% from a year ago. The lake sits 20% below its 5-year median and holds 26% of capacity.
Week of Aug 19, 2026
Lake Mead storage stands at 6.95M af, down 2.1% over the month. The reservoir has lost 13.6% of its volume since this time last year and sits 19% below the 5-year median.
About Lake Mead
Lake Mead's water level is 1,038.06 feet above sea level as of Sep 23, 2026, 181.54 feet below full pool (1,219.6 feet), with 6.84 million acre-feet in storage (26% of capacity). That is 0.44 feet lower than a week earlier and 18.63 feet lower than a year earlier, and the lowest reading in five years.
Hoover Dam created Lake Mead on the Colorado River at the Nevada-Arizona line, the largest reservoir in the United States by capacity at nearly 29 million acre-feet when full. Reclamation operates it as the main bank of the Lower Colorado, delivering water to Arizona, Nevada, California, and Mexico while generating power at the dam. Sustained drought has kept live storage far below full pool.
Total capacity is 26.12M af, over the past five years storage has ranged from 6.84M af to 9.73M af.
Lake Mead is one of the 21 major reservoirs this site totals each day, and one of several it tracks in the Colorado (Lower) basin. 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.
Rain near the lake barely moves this reading. An inch of rain landing on Lake Mead adds about an inch to its surface, while the level itself is set by Colorado River water released from Lake Powell upstream and by what Hoover Dam lets out below; what rain does to the Lake Mead water level works through the numbers.