Wheeler Lake Water Level
Wheeler Lake is at 554.48 ft today (Oct 6), 1.52 ft below its 556 ft full pool, down 0.19 ft this week.
Alabama · Tennessee River
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Water level history
About Wheeler Lake
Wheeler Lake is a reservoir on the Tennessee River in Alabama, operated by Tennessee Valley Authority. Its full summer pool sits at 556 ft above sea level. Live water levels come from the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and update hourly.
Understanding Wheeler Lake's water level
Wheeler Lake is the Tennessee River pool that drowned the upper end of Muscle Shoals, the stretch of rapids that once dropped the river more than 130 feet between Decatur and Florence and kept barges out of north Alabama. TVA started Wheeler Dam in November 1933 and finished it in November 1936, the agency's second dam after Norris. It is only 72 feet high but runs 6,342 feet across the river, the longest of TVA's Tennessee River dams, with 60 spillway gates and 11 generating units. The dam is named for Joseph Wheeler, the Confederate cavalry general who later served in Congress, led troops in the Spanish-American War and pushed early for federal development at Muscle Shoals. Behind it the lake reaches about 60 miles upstream to Guntersville Dam, with 67,070 acres of water and 1,027 miles of shoreline, making it the second largest reservoir in Alabama.
Because Wheeler is a main river reservoir, its level moves in a narrow band. TVA holds it between 555 and 556 feet through the summer, which matches the site's 556 foot full pool, and lets it down to a winter minimum of 550.5 feet, a floor set to keep the navigation channel deep enough for tows. The drawdown starts after Labor Day, and TVA keeps the main river pools low until near the end of the flood season in late April or early May before bringing them back up. That five and a half foot swing is worth 326,500 acre-feet of flood storage. Navigation is a big part of the story here. Decatur is a working river port with about $1.3 billion in private waterfront industry, and the Corps of Engineers runs two locks at the dam that lift tows as much as 52 feet into Wilson Lake: a 600 by 110 foot main chamber and a 360 by 60 foot auxiliary.
The auxiliary lock is the original 1930s chamber, and it has a history. On the night of June 2, 1961, its north wall shifted and broke apart along a thin seam of clay in the shale bedrock, killing two TVA workers and a deckhand and stopping river traffic; a Saturn rocket booster bound for Cape Canaveral had to be offloaded and moved around the dam. TVA repaired the old chamber and built the larger main lock beside it, which opened May 8, 1963. Upstream, Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge, established in 1938, covers about 35,000 acres around Decatur and was the first national refuge laid over a multipurpose reservoir. Thousands of sandhill cranes winter on its Beaverdam peninsula, and endangered whooping cranes have turned up each winter since 2004. On the Limestone County shore near Athens, Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant draws its cooling water from the lake.
Wheeler Lake — frequently asked
What is the normal full pool of Wheeler Lake?
TVA operates Wheeler Lake between 555 and 556 feet above sea level in summer, so 556 feet is the top of the normal range. In a typical year the gauge sits within about a foot of that from late spring through Labor Day. Readings a little above 556 usually mean TVA is passing high inflows from upstream reservoirs rather than filling Wheeler itself.
How low does Wheeler Lake go in winter?
The winter minimum is 550.5 feet, about five and a half feet below summer pool. TVA does not go lower than that because Wheeler carries commercial barge traffic to Decatur and upstream ports, and the channel has to stay deep enough for loaded tows. Shallow coves, stump flats and some private docks in the middle of the lake feel that drop most.
When does Wheeler Lake get drawn down and refilled?
The seasonal drawdown on TVA's main river reservoirs, Wheeler included, begins after the Labor Day weekend and continues into winter so the space is ready for winter storm runoff. Refill comes later than on the tributary lakes. TVA keeps the main river pools low until near the end of the flood season, in late April or early May, then raises Wheeler back to its 555 to 556 foot summer range.
What happened to the Wheeler Lock in 1961?
At 9:20 p.m. on June 2, 1961, the north wall of the original lock shifted and broke apart. TVA traced the failure to a thin seam of clay in a shale band in the bedrock. Two TVA employees and a deckhand on a moored vessel died, and navigation stopped. The old chamber was repaired as today's 360 by 60 foot auxiliary lock, and a new 600 by 110 foot main lock opened in May 1963.
Where are the cranes on Wheeler Lake?
Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge, which spans about 35,000 acres in Morgan, Limestone and Madison counties around Decatur, hosts thousands of wintering sandhill cranes, mostly on the Beaverdam peninsula. Endangered whooping cranes have wintered there since 2004, sometimes more than ten at once. Decatur celebrates the migration each January with the Festival of the Cranes, centered on the refuge visitor center.
Is there a nuclear plant on Wheeler Lake?
Yes. Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant sits on 840 acres beside the lake near Athens, and its three reactors, which came online between 1974 and 1977, make it TVA's largest nuclear plant. It uses the lake for cooling along with cooling towers. In August 2007, heat and drought pushed river temperatures past a 90 degree daily average, and TVA shut down Unit 2, the first time it had idled a reactor over river temperature.
What is Wheeler Lake known for among anglers?
State biologists describe largemouth bass as the dominant species, with smallmouth common from Decatur west, especially below the Elk River, and northern spotted bass near the main channel. The catfish fishery is rated excellent, and Outdoor Alabama notes a 111 pound blue catfish caught here in 1996 as a world record. Sauger run below Guntersville Dam in winter and early spring.
Other lakes near Wheeler Lake
- Wilson LakeAL
- West Point LakeGA/AL
- Woodruff Lake (Robert F. Henry)AL
- Weiss LakeAL
- Bankhead LakeAL
- Lake Wedowee (R.L. Harris)AL
See current levels for all 21 Alabama lakes and reservoirs →
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