Longview Lake Water Level
Longview Lake is at 891.30 ft today (Oct 31), 0.30 ft above its 891 ft full pool, down 0.07 ft this week.
Missouri · Little Blue River
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Water level history
About Longview Lake
Longview Lake is a reservoir on the Little Blue River in Missouri, operated by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Its full summer pool sits at 891 ft above sea level. Live water levels come from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (CWMS) and update hourly.
Understanding Longview Lake's water level
Longview Lake has no gates to manage. The Kansas City District of the Corps of Engineers finished the dam in 1985 at river mile 42.9 on the Little Blue River, and normal flows leave through an ungated drop inlet and a conduit under the embankment, while big floods spill over an ungated 200 foot overflow section with its crest at 911.3 feet. With nobody opening or closing anything, the lake sits at its conservation pool of 891 feet until rain on its roughly 50 square mile watershed pushes it up, then drains back down on its own. That design keeps it remarkably steady: since 2000 the gauge has read between 890 and 892 feet about 80 percent of the time, and above 895 feet less than half a percent of the time. Between 891 and the top of the flood pool at 909 feet the reservoir can hold about 24,800 acre feet of floodwater, more than doubling the 22,134 acre feet stored at normal level.
The lake exists because of the Little Blue River basin plan Congress authorized in 1968. Of eleven dam sites the Corps studied in the basin, only two survived the economics, Longview on the main stem and Blue Springs Lake on the East Fork, and together with downstream channel work they were meant to give the lower valley roughly hundred year flood protection. Construction at Longview began in 1979. Much of the reservoir land came from Longview Farm, the 1,780 acre showplace lumberman R.A. Long built in 1913 and 1914; the Corps acquired 950 acres of it. The earthfill dam is about 1,900 feet long and rises 110 feet above the valley floor, and a separate earthen dike at Elm Avenue plugs a low spot in the rim west of the spillway. Below it lie Kansas City, Lee's Summit, Raytown and Independence along with stretches of I-470 and I-70, and the Corps credits the dam with preventing an estimated $60.9 million in flood damage from 1984 to 2018.
Because the outlet cannot be throttled, the lake's big rises are fast and short. The highest reading in the Corps' hourly record is 903.37 feet on 16 May 1990, about eleven feet in roughly a day, and the next highest came on 22 August 2017, when overnight storms dropped four to six inches across the metro and the lake climbed about nine feet in twelve hours on its way to 900.58. On 4 July 2024 it peaked at 897.03 feet, and Jackson County kept Longview Lake Beach closed through the holiday weekend because the water had not receded to safe levels. That 2024 crest is the high shown in the gauge panel on this page, which covers only recent years. Low water is the opposite story, slow and shallow: with no releases to cut, the lake falls mostly through evaporation and the trickle through the outlet, and its lowest readings since 2000, about 887.5 feet in late 2013, were less than four feet under normal. Jackson County Parks and Recreation runs the 4,852 acre park around the 930 acre lake, with two multilane ramps, a full service marina and a swimming beach.
Longview Lake — frequently asked
What is Longview Lake's normal pool level?
The conservation (multipurpose) pool tops out at 891 feet, where the lake covers about 930 acres and holds roughly 22,100 acre feet. The flood pool runs from there to 909 feet, the ungated spillway crest sits at 911.3 feet, and the top of the dam is 926.6 feet. Corps fact sheets that use the NAVD88 datum list the spillway and dam crest about 0.3 feet higher.
What is the record high level at Longview Lake?
The Corps' hourly gauge record peaks at 903.37 feet on 16 May 1990, about twelve feet above normal pool and still six feet short of the top of the flood pool. The lake rose from about 892 feet in roughly a day. The second highest reading is 900.58 feet on 22 August 2017, followed by about 899.3 feet in May 1995 and 899.1 feet in both May 2007 and June 2010.
Why does Longview Lake rise so fast after heavy rain?
Its outlet works are ungated, so the Corps cannot hold water back ahead of a storm or release more to make room. A cloudburst over the 50 square mile watershed reaches the lake within hours, far faster than the outlet passes it. In August 2017 the lake rose about nine feet in twelve hours after storms that dropped four to six inches across the Kansas City area, with isolated totals near ten inches.
How long does it take Longview Lake to go back down after a flood?
Usually a week to ten days for the bulk of it. After the May 1990 record crest of 903.37 feet the lake was back near 892.5 feet ten days later, and after the August 2017 crest of 900.58 feet it was down to about 892 feet in nine days. The last foot drains more slowly; in 2017 it took another four days to fall from 892 to about 891.5 feet.
Has Longview Lake ever been very low?
Not by reservoir standards. Because nothing is released except what passes the small ungated outlet, the lake drops mainly to evaporation during dry spells. Its lowest readings since 2000 came during the dry stretch from late 2012 into early 2014, when it sat two to three feet below normal and bottomed out at 887.49 feet in late October 2013. Since 2000 it has read below 890 feet about 12 percent of the time.
Is Longview Lake connected to Blue Springs Lake?
They are sister projects, not connected waters. Both came out of the Little Blue River basin plan Congress authorized in 1968, which kept two of eleven candidate dam sites. Longview sits on the main stem of the Little Blue River in south Kansas City and Lee's Summit, and Blue Springs Lake is on the East Fork just below Lake Jacomo. Jackson County Parks and Recreation runs recreation at both, and both beaches closed after the July 2024 flooding.
What is the fishing like at Longview Lake?
Missouri Department of Conservation biologists report improving largemouth bass, with half of the bass in 2023 electrofishing at 15 inches or longer, and in spring 2025 surveys 97 percent of walleye topped 15 inches. Crappie fishing has been tough, mostly 8 to 10 inch fish. Channel catfish are plentiful at just over a pound, flatheads are reproducing naturally, and white bass are abundant. Zebra mussels were found in summer 2024.
Other lakes near Longview Lake
- Mark Twain LakeMO
- Bull Shoals LakeAR/MO
- Norfork LakeAR/MO
- Blue Springs LakeMO
- Lake of the OzarksMO
- Wappapello LakeMO
See current levels for all 12 Missouri lakes and reservoirs →
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