Reservoirs
Near normalNew Melones Lake level
Live reservoir storage and water level in San Joaquin basin, California
Data through Aug 12, 2026 · source last checked Aug 13, 2026 · page revised Aug 13, 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
- New Melones Lake level
- Unit
- acre-feet
- Calculation
- Daily reading
- Last observation
- Aug 12, 2026
- Update frequency
- Daily
Now 1.59M af, 6% below the 5-yr median, 66% of capacity.
New Melones storage fell to 1.59M af, down 4.3% on the month and 6% below the 5-year median. The lake holds 66% of capacity.
| Period | Current | Prior | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week over week | 1.59M af | 1.60M af | -0.9% |
| Month over month | 1.59M af | 1.66M af | -4.3% |
| Year over year | 1.59M af | 1.69M af | -6.1% |
| vs 5-yr median | 1.59M af | 1.69M af | -6.1% |
| Measure | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Full pool elevation | 1,088 ft above sea level (top of joint use pool, at the spillway crest) | USBR |
| Surface area at full pool | 13,450 acres | USACE NID |
| Total capacity | 2,400,000 acre-feet | CDEC |
About New Melones Lake
New Melones Dam impounds the Stanislaus River in the Sierra foothills and ranks among the largest CVP reservoirs at about 2.4 million acre-feet. Reclamation balances it across flood control, senior water rights on the Stanislaus, irrigation, hydropower, and fishery releases. By capacity it sits among the four biggest reservoirs in California.
Total capacity is 2.40M af, over the past five years storage has ranged from 583,412 af to 2.10M af.
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 for how far the surface sits below a full reservoir. 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 Bureau of Reclamation; surface area from the Army Corps' National Inventory of Dams; total capacity from the California Data Exchange Center.