Falls Lake Water Level
Falls Lake is at 246.53 ft today (Oct 6), 4.97 ft below its 251.5 ft full pool, down 0.34 ft this week.
North Carolina · Neuse River
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Water level history
About Falls Lake
Falls Lake is a reservoir on the Neuse River in North Carolina, operated by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Its full summer pool sits at 251.5 ft above sea level. Live water levels come from USGS gauge 02087182 and update every 15 to 60 minutes.
Understanding Falls Lake's water level
Falls Lake does not follow a seasonal guide curve. Since the Corps revised its operating plan in the mid-1990s, replacing earlier interim curves that varied through the year, the target has been a flat 251.5 feet all year. Everything below that line, down to 236.5 feet, is conservation storage, split between a water supply account for Raleigh and a water quality account the Corps spends on low-flow releases to keep the Neuse healthy downstream. Minimum releases are about 60 cubic feet per second from November through March and 100 in the warmer months, with target flows of 184 and 254 cfs at Clayton. Everything above 251.5, up to the spillway crest at 264.8, is flood storage, 221,182 acre-feet of it. The dam sits about ten miles north of Raleigh and collects 770 square miles of the upper Neuse basin, fed by the Eno, Flat and Little rivers. The rain that matters falls over Durham, Granville County and northern Wake, not over Raleigh itself.
Flood control heads the list of the dam's purposes, and below it the Neuse runs past Clayton, Smithfield, Goldsboro and Kinston. The Corps estimates the September 1945 flood would have put water at 263.1 feet at the damsite, and the lake's own record came in 1999, when Hurricane Floyd pushed the pool to 264.34 feet, less than half a foot below the uncontrolled spillway. Water stored above 251.5 is released only as fast as the river below can carry it. The plan keys on the Clayton gauge, where damage starts around 11 feet or roughly 7,000 cfs, and it limits how fast releases ramp up. After Hurricane Matthew in October 2016 the lake climbed from about 251.7 to near 258.9 feet in less than a week and was held there for roughly two weeks while the river stayed high at Goldsboro and Kinston. Bigger releases waited on the lower river, which is why a high Falls Lake can linger long after the storm.
The E.M. Johnson treatment plant draws from the lake and supplies most of the drinking water for Raleigh Water, which serves more than 600,000 people in Raleigh, Garner, Wake Forest, Knightdale, Rolesville and Wendell. In January 2019 the Army approved moving roughly 5.5 billion gallons of conservation storage from the water quality account to the city's water supply, after a Corps study found the water quality storage had never been emptied. Droughts show up fast here. The lake set its record low in the winter of 2007 to 2008, and in 2026 an unusual winter and spring drought left the water supply pool below 85 percent in April for the first time on record and dropped the lake nearly six feet below normal by early July. Quality is a separate fight: the lake has exceeded the state chlorophyll a standard since 2008, and the Falls Lake Rules, effective in January 2011, call for cutting nitrogen 40 percent and phosphorus 77 percent across the watershed.
Falls Lake — frequently asked
What is Falls Lake's full pool?
Normal pool is 251.5 feet above sea level (NGVD29), held year round. At that level the lake covers about 12,410 acres with roughly 175 miles of shoreline. The flood control pool tops out at 264.8 feet, the crest of the uncontrolled spillway, where the lake would spread over about 21,427 acres. Readings above 251.5 mean the Corps is storing floodwater; readings below mean the conservation pool is being drawn down.
What is the record high level at Falls Lake?
264.34 feet in the fall of 1999, after Hurricane Floyd, according to the Corps' pertinent data sheet for the project. That was about 12.8 feet above normal pool and within half a foot of the spillway crest. Before the dam, the Corps estimates the September 1945 flood would have reached 263.1 feet at the site. More recently the lake reached about 261.2 feet at the start of January 2016 and about 258.9 feet after Hurricane Matthew that October. The USGS lake gauge behind this page only begins in 2007, so the all time high it shows is the highest since then, not the Floyd peak.
What is the lowest Falls Lake has ever been?
The record came during the 2007 to 2008 drought. The lake broke its previous low, set in November 1993, on 20 November 2007 at 242.62 feet and kept falling. USGS daily readings bottomed out at about 241.55 feet on Christmas Day 2007, roughly ten feet below normal pool. Raleigh had started Stage 1 restrictions that August. The lake recovered in 2008, and rain from the remnants of Fay helped end the regional drought late that summer.
Why was Falls Lake so low in 2026?
The drought began in winter and spring, the months when the lake normally refills. Raleigh Water said the water supply pool fell below 85 percent in April 2026 for the first time on record, and Stage 1 restrictions took effect April 20. The lake dropped to about 245.6 feet in early July, the lowest since 2007 to 2009. A wet July brought it back to about 248.7 feet by early August, and restrictions were lifted August 3.
Does Falls Lake have a winter drawdown?
No. Falls Lake holds the same 251.5 foot target in every season. Seasonal changes come from weather, not a schedule. The operating plan also asks the Corps to avoid lowering the lake more than six inches from the time the water reaches 65 degrees until three weeks after it first reaches 70, protecting spawning fish, as long as that does not jeopardize flood control or water supply.
When does low water affect boating on Falls Lake?
A 2017 water reallocation study cited by WRAL found that boating and recreational impacts typically start below 247 feet, about four and a half feet under normal pool. The state recreation area runs seven access areas around the lake, and the Highway 50 access is listed for year round boat launching. When the lake is several feet below 251.5, check ramp conditions with the park before heading out.
Why does Falls Lake stay high after big storms?
Floodwater above 251.5 feet can only be released as fast as the Neuse can carry it without flooding towns downstream. Operators watch the Clayton gauge, where damage begins around 7,000 cfs, and the plan calls for cutting releases to the minimum whenever runoff from a storm below the dam is forecast to cause damaging flows. After Hurricane Matthew in 2016 the Corps delayed planned releases for days because the Neuse was still high at Goldsboro and Kinston.
Flow released below Falls Lake
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 Falls Lake
See current levels for all 11 North Carolina lakes and reservoirs →
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