Reservoirs
Below normalLake Oroville water level
Live reservoir storage and water level in Feather-Sacramento basin, California
Data through Sep 9, 2026 · source last checked Sep 10, 2026 · page revised Sep 10, 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 Oroville water level
- Unit
- acre-feet
- Calculation
- Daily reading
- Last observation
- Sep 9, 2026
- Update frequency
- Daily
Now 1.86M af, 15% below the 5-yr median, 54% of capacity.
| Period | Current | Prior | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week over week | 1.86M af | 1.94M af | -4.1% |
| Month over month | 1.86M af | 2.32M af | -19.9% |
| Year over year | 1.86M af | 2.24M af | -16.7% |
| vs 5-yr median | 1.86M af | 2.19M af | -15.0% |
| Measure | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Full pool elevation | 900 ft above sea level (full pool) | CA DWR |
| Maximum depth at the dam | 748 ft | USACE NID |
| Surface area at full pool | 15,800 acres | USACE NID |
| Total capacity | 3,424,753 acre-feet | CDEC |
Previous weeks
Week of Aug 26, 2026
Oroville storage fell to 2.05M af, down 5.0% on the week. Month-over-month decline was 20.7%. Current storage is 14% below the 5-year median and at 60% of capacity.
Week of Aug 19, 2026
Oroville storage fell to 2.16M af, down 5.7% over the week. Month over month the decline reached 20.8%. The lake sits 13% below its 5-year median and holds 63% of capacity.
An earlier week
Oroville storage fell to 2.29M af, down 5.3% on the week and 19.2% over the month. It sits 11% below the 5-year median.
Week of Aug 13, 2026
Lake Oroville storage fell to 2.34M af, down 5.4% on the week. The decline accelerates over longer horizons: down 18.9% on the month and 10% below the 5-year median, with the lake at 68% of capacity.
About Lake Oroville
Oroville Dam holds back the Feather River as the headwaters storage of California's State Water Project, operated by the Department of Water Resources rather than a federal agency. At 770 feet it is the tallest dam in the United States, behind the state's second-largest reservoir at more than 3.5 million acre-feet. DWR runs it for supply, hydropower, and winter flood control.
Total capacity is 3.42M af, over the past five years storage has ranged from 787,578 af to 3.54M af.
Lake Oroville is one of the 20 major reservoirs this site totals each day, and one of several it tracks in the Feather-Sacramento basin. For the combined picture, western reservoir levels carries the storage of all 20 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 rather than water depth, so read the current figure against total capacity for how full the reservoir is, and 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 from the California Department of Water Resources; maximum depth and surface area from the Army Corps' National Inventory of Dams; total capacity from the California Data Exchange Center.