Shasta Lake water level
Sacramento River · California · operated by USBR (Shasta Dam)
By Michael, independent developer behind zovo.one. Readings pulled live from the same CDEC feed the operator reports to.
Shasta Lake is 50% full as of Nov 4, 2026, per CDEC data; 95.2 ft below full pool.
Is that normal for the date?
At 971.84 ft, Shasta Lake is lower than 54% of Novembers in 41 years of daily record.
The median for this date across 41 years is 975.27 ft, so this is -3.43 ft against the lake’s own history. Placed on a quantile ladder built from 14,161 daily readings published by CDEC for site SHA, 1985-01-01 to 2026-08-06. This reservoir typically peaks in April and bottoms out in January.
Shasta Lake today: level, trend, source and access
Level against full pool
On Nov 4, 2026 the surface sat at 971.8 ft, 95.2 ft below the full-pool mark of 1,067 ft. It held 2,260,161 acre-feet of its 4,552,000 acre-foot capacity (50% full), so it needs about 2,292,000 acre-feet more to fill. CDEC put its storage at 93% 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 7 of 12.
Trend
Between Oct 6 and Nov 4 (29 days) the level fell 8.3 ft, about 2.0 ft a week. The high in that window was 980.2 ft on Oct 6 and the low was 971.8 ft on Nov 4. In the last 7 days it fell 1.4 ft. The last 24 hours moved it down 0.22 ft.
Data source
The elevation comes from California Data Exchange Center (CDEC) station SHA (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 (Shasta Dam) runs the dam on the Sacramento River.
Recreation status
Status: below normal. At 50% full it is 10.0 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 (Shasta Dam). If the 30-day pace of 2.0 ft a week down held, the surface would be near 963.8 ft in four weeks. Releases and rain change that quickly.
To see where today sits against every monthly reading since 1953, the Shasta 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 Shasta Lake is about 296.2 m above sea level, and full pool is about 325.2 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.