Reservoirs
Below normalLake Oroville water level
Live reservoir storage and water level in Feather-Sacramento basin, California
Data through Sep 30, 2026 · source last checked Oct 1, 2026 · page revised Oct 1, 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 30, 2026
- Update frequency
- Daily
Now 1.63M af, 14% below the 5-yr median, 48% of capacity.
Lake Oroville storage fell to 1.63M af, down 17.5% over the month and 21% year over year. The lake sits 14% below the 5-year median and holds 48% of capacity.
| Period | Current | Prior | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week over week | 1.63M af | 1.72M af | -5.2% |
| Month over month | 1.63M af | 1.97M af | -17.5% |
| Year over year | 1.63M af | 2.06M af | -21.0% |
| vs 5-yr median | 1.63M af | 1.89M af | -13.8% |
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Latest reading, Sep 30, 2026 | 753.32 ft above sea level |
| Change from a week earlier | -9.42 ft |
| Change from a year earlier | -42.89 ft |
| 5-yr median for the date | 779.93 ft |
| Below full pool | 146.68 ft |
| Five-year low | 628.63 ft (Sep 30, 2021) |
| Five-year high | 899.88 ft (Jun 20, 2023) |
| 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 Sep 23, 2026
Oroville storage fell to 1.72M af, down 4.5% on the week. Over the month the level fell 17.6%, running 14% below the 5-year median.
Week of Sep 15, 2026
Lake Oroville storage fell to 1.80M af, down 18% year-over-year and 18.5% month-over-month. The reservoir sits 14% below the 5-year median at 53% of capacity.
Week of Sep 2, 2026
Oroville storage is 1.94M af, down 21% since the prior month. The reservoir sits 15% below its 5-year median and at 57% of capacity. Week over week, storage fell 5.4%.
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.
About Lake Oroville
Lake Oroville's water level is 753.32 feet above sea level as of Sep 30, 2026, 146.68 feet below full pool (900 feet), with 1.63 million acre-feet in storage (48% of capacity). That is 9.42 feet lower than a week earlier and 42.89 feet lower than a year earlier.
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 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 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.