Lake Oahe Water Level
Lake Oahe is at 1,592.10 ft today (Oct 18), 27.90 ft below its 1,620 ft full pool, down 0.10 ft this week.
South Dakota & North Dakota · Missouri River
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Water level history
About Lake Oahe
Lake Oahe is a reservoir on the Missouri River in South Dakota & North Dakota, operated by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It stretches nearly 230 miles from Pierre to Bismarck. Its full summer pool sits at 1620 ft above sea level. Live water levels come from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (CWMS) and update hourly.
Understanding Lake Oahe's water level
Lake Oahe backs the Missouri River up from Oahe Dam, just north of Pierre, for about 231 miles into North Dakota toward Bismarck. At its maximum operating pool it holds roughly 23.5 million acre-feet, enough to rank it as the fourth largest reservoir in the country by volume. The 1620 foot figure shown as full pool is the top of the Corps of Engineers' operating range, not a normal summer target. The Corps divides the lake into stacked zones. Below 1540 feet is inactive storage. From 1540 to 1607.5 is carryover multiple use storage, the reserve that keeps water flowing downstream through drought years. From 1607.5 to 1617 is the annual flood control and multiple use zone, and from 1617 to 1620 is exclusive flood control, set aside for holding floodwater. So a reading near 1607 means the lake sits at the base of its flood space, and anything well below that means the system is spending its drought reserve. Releases are set by the Corps water management office in Omaha.
The Corps started building the dam in 1948 and closed off the river on 3 August 1958. Filling the pool took years. The first of seven generating units went into service on 9 April 1962, President Kennedy dedicated the dam on 17 August 1962, the last unit started in June 1963, and the lake did not first reach 1607.5 feet until 1968. The embankment stands 245 feet high and runs 9,360 feet across the valley, with a powerhouse rated at 786 megawatts. The reservoir was carved largely out of two Lakota reservations. A 1999 Senate committee report counted 104,492 acres taken from the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe for the dam and reservoir, with 181 families, about 30 percent of the tribe, forced off the fertile bottomlands and four reservation communities flooded. A companion report put the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's loss at about 56,000 acres. Off the reservations, the old town of Forest City lies under the water about nine miles west of Gettysburg.
The record high is 1619.7 feet, set in 2011, just topping the 1618.7 reached in 1995 and 1996. That flood pushed about 160,300 cubic feet per second through the dam in mid June, and state biologists say it carried much of the lake's prey fish biomass downstream with it; prey populations fell sharply afterward and the fish that stayed showed poor condition and high natural mortality. The opposite extreme came in August 2006, when years of drought dropped the lake to its record low of 1570.2 feet and left boat ramps high and dry. South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks built new ramps during the 2002 to 2006 low water period, and some of the lake's 39 ramps are low water ramps that may be unusable except during droughts. Walleye drive the fishery, making up 86 percent of the 2015 harvest, and Chinook salmon have been stocked since 1982. Between 2005 and 2015 the lake drew between 94,000 and 338,000 angler days a year.
Lake Oahe — frequently asked
What is Lake Oahe's full pool?
The site uses 1620 feet, which is the Corps of Engineers' maximum operating pool and the top of the exclusive flood control zone, with about 23.5 million acre-feet of gross storage. In practice the lake is managed well below that. The top of carryover multiple use storage is 1607.5 feet, the annual flood control and multiple use zone runs from 1607.5 to 1617, and only floods push the lake into the 1617 to 1620 band.
What is Lake Oahe's record high level?
1619.7 feet in 2011, according to South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks, beating the previous record of 1618.7 feet set in 1995 and 1996. During that flood the Corps released about 160,300 cubic feet per second through Oahe Dam in mid June, far above the old release record of 53,900 cubic feet per second from 1997. For scale, the dam's design flood would crest at 1644.4 feet, and the dam's crest sits at 1660.
What is Lake Oahe's record low?
1570.2 feet in August 2006, the bottom of a long drought that also drained Lake Sakakawea upstream. Recovery came in bursts: the lake rose 9.2 feet from May to July 2008 and 17 feet from February to June 2009, and by early December 2009 it stood at 1608.2 feet, 38 feet above the record. The more recent dip shown in the site's widget, 1588.81 feet in 2022, stayed well above that mark.
Why is Lake Oahe so low?
Usually because the upper Missouri basin is in drought. Oahe's level depends on plains runoff and Rocky Mountain snowpack, and in dry years the Corps keeps releasing water downstream from carryover storage, the zone between 1540 and 1607.5 feet that exists for exactly that purpose. In April 2022 state officials warned the lake would keep dropping because of drought and low mountain snowpack. Minimum operating pool for power generation is 1540 feet.
Are Lake Oahe boat ramps open at low water?
Some are, some are not. Game, Fish and Parks counts 39 ramps on the lake, including low water ramps built during the 2002 to 2006 drought that may only be usable when the lake is down. In 2022 the department's director said it would work to keep plenty of ramps open but that keeping every ramp open probably would not be feasible. Officials also warn about submerged hazards and ask boaters not to drive on exposed shoreline.
When was Oahe Dam built?
Construction began in 1948 and the river was diverted on 3 August 1958. The first generating unit came online on 9 April 1962, President John F. Kennedy dedicated the dam on 17 August 1962, and the seventh unit followed on 27 June 1963. The reservoir first filled to 1607.5 feet, the top of its carryover storage, in 1968, a decade after closure.
How is the walleye fishing on Lake Oahe?
Walleye are the main event, accounting for 86 percent of harvested fish in 2015, when anglers caught 0.77 walleye per hour. Forage matters: after the 2011 flood flushed much of the lake's prey fish through the dam, biologists recorded a sharp drop in prey populations followed by poor fish condition and high natural mortality. The state has also stocked more than 9.1 million Chinook salmon since 1982.
Other lakes near Lake Oahe
- Pactola ReservoirSD
- Lewis and Clark LakeSD/NE
- Shadehill ReservoirSD
- Lake Francis CaseSD
- Lake SharpeSD
See current levels for all 6 South Dakota lakes and reservoirs →
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