Lake Berryessa Water Level
Lake Berryessa is at 428.41 ft today (Oct 5), 11.59 ft below its 440 ft full pool, down 0.31 ft this week.
California · Putah Creek
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Water level history
About Lake Berryessa
Lake Berryessa is a reservoir on the Putah Creek in California, operated by U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. It's famous for the “Glory Hole” spillway. Its full summer pool sits at 440 ft above sea level. Live water levels come from California's Department of Water Resources (CDEC) and update daily.
Understanding Lake Berryessa's water level
Lake Berryessa has no spillway gates. The only way water leaves the reservoir in a flood is over the lip of the Morning Glory spillway, a concrete funnel 72 feet across that sits in the lake about 200 feet from Monticello Dam. Once the surface climbs past 440 feet, water pours over the rim, drops roughly 200 feet down a shaft that narrows to 28 feet, makes a right angle turn, and runs hundreds of feet to the far side of the dam before emptying into Putah Creek. Nobody opens it and nobody can close it. That is why 440 feet is the number everyone watches here: it is full pool, it is the spill line, and in a wet winter the lake parks just above it for weeks while the Glory Hole drains the surplus. The design came from the canyon itself. Monticello Dam is a 304 foot concrete arch wedged into a gorge too narrow for a conventional spillway beside it.
Reclamation built the dam and the rest of the Solano Project between 1953 and 1957, with the Putah South Canal following in 1959. Some 200 to 250 people lived in the town of Monticello, a ranching community where cattle were driven down the main street for the annual rodeo, and the reservoir covered it after most residents moved out by the summer of 1956. The lake took years to fill; it first reached capacity in April 1963, and the Glory Hole spilled that month for the first time. Its highest level on record is 446.7 feet in 1983. Its lowest is 361.75 feet in January 1993. The year before, drought had pulled the lake to about 30 percent of capacity, and the old town's foundations showed again.
Berryessa's water is Solano County's supply. About six miles below the dam, Putah Diversion Dam backs up the small Lake Solano and turns water into the Putah South Canal, which runs south about 30 miles toward Cordelia to serve farms and the cities of Vallejo, Vacaville, Fairfield, Benicia and Suisun City. The Solano County Water Agency and Solano Irrigation District operate the reservoir under a cooperative agreement with Reclamation, and it refills from a 566 square mile watershed. Level swings reach the shoreline in both directions. Reclamation closed the Capell Cove launch ramp for high water in March 2019 and again for drought in August 2021, pointing boaters to Putah Canyon, Spanish Flat, Steele Canyon, Pleasure Cove and Markley Cove.
Lake Berryessa — frequently asked
What is Lake Berryessa's full pool?
440 feet above sea level, the elevation of the Glory Hole's rim. At that point the lake holds about 1,551,300 acre-feet. Reclamation lists the reservoir's total capacity as 1,602,000 acre-feet, a figure that includes water stacked above the rim during a spill. Because the spillway is uncontrolled, any rise above 440 feet goes straight over the lip and into Putah Creek.
When does the Glory Hole spill?
Only when the lake rises above 440 feet, which takes a wet winter on top of an already high lake. Recent spills began on 16 February 2017, after a dry stretch of more than a decade, again in February 2019, and on 4 February 2025 at 6:15 p.m. A spill can run for months; the 2017 event lasted from February into May, and the longest on record, in 1967, ran 148 days.
Did Lake Berryessa spill in 2023 or 2024?
No. After 2019 the next spill came in February 2025. In spring 2024 the lake set an odd record of its own, sitting within an inch of the rim for more than two weeks starting 1 April without officially spilling, though trickles did run into the mouth at one point. A Solano County water official who had watched the reservoir for nearly 20 years called it unprecedented.
What is Lake Berryessa's record high?
446.7 feet in 1983, nearly seven feet over the Glory Hole rim. That is well above the highs of recent years; the 2025 spill, for comparison, peaked in the low 440s. The lake also spilled twice in 1983. With no gates to open, the only thing limiting a rise above the rim is how fast the spillway can drain, which Wikipedia puts at about 48,400 cubic feet per second. The gauge on this page only covers readings since 2022, so its high and low are recent marks, not these records.
What is Lake Berryessa's record low?
361.75 feet in January 1993, about 78 feet below full pool. Drought had pulled the reservoir to roughly 30 percent of capacity in 1992, low enough that the foundations of the drowned town of Monticello reappeared. More recent dry years have hurt access without matching that mark; in August 2021 Reclamation closed the Capell Cove ramp as the water receded.
What town is under Lake Berryessa?
Monticello, a small ranching town of roughly 200 to 250 people in Berryessa Valley. Its annual rodeo sent about a hundred cattle down the main street. Construction of Monticello Dam started on 23 September 1953, most residents had left by the summer of 1956, and the final bucket of concrete went in on 26 February 1957. In deep droughts like 1992 its foundations have surfaced again.
How is the fishing at Lake Berryessa?
Slower than it used to be, according to the state. CDFW stocks Chinook salmon, kokanee, rainbow trout and Eagle Lake trout, but its 2024 creel survey found anglers catching 0.16 fish per hour, down from 0.7 in 2013. Black bass and trout made up most of the catch. Kokanee interest collapsed: 68 percent of anglers targeted them in 2013, only 6 percent in 2024.
Flow released below Lake Berryessa
This gauge reads the water leaving the dam, which is the number to check for fishing, paddling and downstream conditions. Live flow is tracked on riverlvl.com.
Other lakes near Lake Berryessa
- Black Butte LakeCA
- Tulloch ReservoirCA
- Boca ReservoirCA
- Trinity LakeCA
- Camanche ReservoirCA
- Lake TahoeCA/NV
See current levels for all 29 California lakes and reservoirs →
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