Water level
Sam Rayburn Reservoir water level
Sam Rayburn Reservoir is at 154.96 ft (9.4 ft below the 164.4 ft full pool), about 67% full as of Sep 9, 2026. Live readings, trend, history and what the level means for swimming and boat ramps.
Recent readings
Daily values from USGS gauge 08039300.
| Date | Elevation (ft) | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-08 | 154.98 | -0.02 |
| 2026-09-07 | 155.00 | +0.00 |
| 2026-09-06 | 155.00 | -0.01 |
| 2026-09-05 | 155.01 | -0.03 |
| 2026-09-04 | 155.04 | -0.03 |
| 2026-09-03 | 155.07 | -0.03 |
| 2026-09-02 | 155.10 | -0.05 |
| 2026-09-01 | 155.15 |
What this level means
Sam Rayburn is managed as a flood-control and water-supply reservoir, so the level rises quickly after East Texas storms and falls slowly through the dry season. The conservation pool is 164.4 feet; below roughly 151 feet the lake approaches its lowest recorded daily average since 2000, and shallow ramps begin to run out of concrete. The dead pool, the point below which water cannot be released by gravity, sits at 105 feet.
How this reading is taken
USGS gauge 08039300 measures the water surface and publishes the value continuously. This page stores the latest reading at build time and refreshes the record daily, so the figure above is a real measurement rather than a model or an estimate.
Full pool for Sam Rayburn Reservoir is 164.4 ft, so the gap between the reading and that number is what the reservoir is missing.
Elevations are given in feet above the gauge datum used by the operating agency. Two lakes are only comparable with each other through how full they are, not through their raw elevation, because each dam sits at a different height.
Water level questions
What is the current water level at Sam Rayburn Reservoir?
The USGS gauge near Jasper reported 154.96 feet on September 8, 2026, which is 9.4 feet below the 164.4-foot conservation pool.
How full is Sam Rayburn Reservoir?
The Texas Water Development Board put the reservoir at 67 percent of conservation capacity, holding 1,913,458 acre-feet of the 2,857,077 acre-feet it is designed to store.
What is full pool at Sam Rayburn?
The conservation pool elevation is 164.4 feet. Water above that level is flood storage and is released as conditions allow.
Sources
Every figure on this page comes from one of these public sources.