Reservoirs
Near normalShasta Lake level
Live reservoir storage and water level in Sacramento basin, California
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
- Shasta Lake level
- Unit
- acre-feet
- Calculation
- Daily reading
- Last observation
- Oct 15, 2026
- Update frequency
- Daily
Now 2.37M af, 10% below the 5-yr median, 52% of capacity.
Shasta storage stands at 2.37M af, 10% below the 5-yr median and 52% of capacity. Storage has fallen 9.5% from a year ago and 6.2% from the prior month.
| Period | Current | Prior | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week over week | 2.37M af | 2.41M af | -1.7% |
| Month over month | 2.37M af | 2.53M af | -6.2% |
| Year over year | 2.37M af | 2.62M af | -9.5% |
| vs 5-yr median | 2.37M af | 2.62M af | -9.5% |
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Latest reading, Oct 15, 2026 | 977.6 ft above sea level |
| Change from a week earlier | -2.17 ft |
| Change from a year earlier | -12.51 ft |
| 5-yr median for the date | 990.11 ft |
| Below full pool | 89.4 ft |
| Five-year low | 882.24 ft (Oct 21, 2021) |
| Five-year high | 1,064.12 ft (May 24, 2023) |
| Measure | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Full pool elevation | 1,067 ft above sea level | USBR |
| Maximum depth at the dam | 522.5 ft | USBR |
| Surface area at full pool | 30,210 acres | USACE NID |
| Total capacity | 4,552,000 acre-feet | CDEC |
Previous weeks
An earlier week
Shasta storage fell to 2.38M af, down 1.6% on the week. Month over month, the reservoir dropped 6.2%. The lake sits 9% below the 5-year median at 52% of capacity.
Week of Oct 7, 2026
Shasta storage fell to 2.42M af, down 6.2% over the month and 8.8% from a year ago. The lake sits 9% below its 5-year median and holds 53% of capacity.
Week of Sep 23, 2026
Shasta storage fell to 2.48M af, down 8.8% on the month. The lake sits 8% below its 5-year median, with year-over-year storage also down 8.4%.
Week of Sep 15, 2026
Shasta storage fell to 2.53M af, down 10.2% over the month and 8.3% from a year ago. The lake sits 8% below the 5-yr median.
About Shasta Lake
Shasta Lake's water level is 977.6 feet above sea level as of Oct 15, 2026, 89.4 feet below full pool (1,067 feet), with 2.37 million acre-feet in storage (52% of capacity). That is 2.17 feet lower than a week earlier and 12.51 feet lower than a year earlier.
Shasta Dam blocks the upper Sacramento River north of Redding and anchors the Central Valley Project. At roughly 4.5 million acre-feet it is the largest reservoir in California, holding close to 40 percent of the CVP's stored water. Reclamation runs it for irrigation, flood control, hydropower, and cold-water releases that protect salmon downstream.
Total capacity is 4.55M af, over the past five years storage has ranged from 967,370 af to 4.47M af.
Shasta Lake is one of the 21 major reservoirs this site totals each day, and one of several it tracks in the Sacramento 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 California Data Exchange Center.