Lake Isabella water level
Kern River · California · operated by USACE (Isabella Dam)
By Michael, independent developer behind zovo.one. Readings pulled live from the same CDEC feed the operator reports to.
Lake Isabella is 24% full as of Nov 4, 2026, per CDEC data; 18.1 ft below full pool.
Is that normal for the date?
At 2,554.93 ft, Lake Isabella is higher than 57% of Novembers in 42 years of daily record.
The median for this date across 42 years is 2,549.26 ft, so this is +5.67 ft against the lake’s own history. Placed on a quantile ladder built from 13,286 daily readings published by CDEC for site ISB, 1985-01-01 to 2026-08-06. This reservoir typically peaks in June and bottoms out in January.
Lake Isabella today: level, trend, source and access
Level against full pool
On Nov 4, 2026 the surface sat at 2,554.9 ft, 18.1 ft below the full-pool mark of 2,573 ft. It held 139,165 acre-feet of its 568,075 acre-foot capacity (24% full), so it needs about 429,000 acre-feet more to fill. CDEC put its storage at 98% 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 11 of 12.
Trend
Between Oct 6 and Nov 4 (29 days) the level fell 1.4 ft, about 0.3 ft a week. The high in that window was 2,556.3 ft on Oct 6 and the low was 2,554.9 ft on Oct 30. In the last 7 days it held level. The last 24 hours changed it by less than 0.1 ft.
Data source
The elevation comes from California Data Exchange Center (CDEC) station ISB (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. USACE (Isabella Dam) runs the dam on the Kern River.
Recreation status
Status: low. At 24% full it is 11.0 points under 35%, where many ramps end above the waterline and stumps, sandbars and rock shelves show. Call USACE (Isabella Dam) before you tow a boat there. If the 30-day pace of 0.3 ft a week down held, the surface would be near 2,553.6 ft in four weeks. Releases and rain change that quickly.
To see where today sits against every monthly reading since 1952, the Lake Isabella 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 Lake Isabella is about 778.7 m above sea level, and full pool is about 784.3 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.