Folsom Lake water level
American River · California · operated by USBR (Folsom Dam)
By Michael, independent developer behind zovo.one. Readings pulled live from the same CDEC feed the operator reports to.
Folsom Lake is 38% full as of Nov 4, 2026, per CDEC data; 67.6 ft below full pool.
Is that normal for the date?
At 398.36 ft, Folsom Lake is lower than 57% of Novembers in 42 years of daily record.
The median for this date across 42 years is 402.22 ft, so this is -3.86 ft against the lake’s own history. Placed on a quantile ladder built from 14,209 daily readings published by CDEC for site FOL, 1985-02-12 to 2026-08-06. This reservoir typically peaks in June and bottoms out in January.
Folsom Lake today: level, trend, source and access
Level against full pool
On Nov 4, 2026 the surface sat at 398.4 ft, 67.6 ft below the full-pool mark of 466 ft. It held 368,628 acre-feet of its 977,000 acre-foot capacity (38% full), so it needs about 608,000 acre-feet more to fill. CDEC put its storage at 89% of the historical average for Nov 4, a little below a normal year for the date. Of the 12 California lakes on this site with a live percent-full reading, it ranks 10 of 12.
Trend
Between Oct 6 and Nov 4 (29 days) the level fell 7.2 ft, about 1.7 ft a week. The high in that window was 405.6 ft on Oct 6 and the low was 398.4 ft on Nov 4. In the last 7 days it fell 1.2 ft. The last 24 hours moved it down 0.05 ft.
Data source
The elevation comes from California Data Exchange Center (CDEC) station FOL (California Department of Water Resources), last reported Nov 4, 2026. Percent full is CDEC storage divided by the capacity CDEC lists for the dam. Feet from full pool, the trend and the figures above are computed from that reading and the published full-pool elevation; none is typed by hand. USBR (Folsom Dam) runs the dam on the American River.
Recreation status
Status: low. At 38% full it is 22.0 points under 60%, the line above which most ramps stay in the water. Expect some ramps to be short of water and check the one you plan to use with USBR (Folsom Dam). If the 30-day pace of 1.7 ft a week down held, the surface would be near 391.4 ft in four weeks. Releases and rain change that quickly.
To see where today sits against every monthly reading since 1955, the Folsom Lake water level chart plots the whole CDEC storage record and ranks the latest month against the same month in every year.
Check an elevation against full pool
For readers outside the U.S., the surface of Folsom Lake is about 121.4 m above sea level, and full pool is about 142.0 m.
Check any elevation yourself. Type a level in feet above sea level (a ramp cutoff, a marina mark) to see how far it sits below full pool and in meters.