Data Sources & Attribution

Our commitment to transparency, data integrity, and agency attribution.

NOAA National Water Prediction Service (NWPS)

Pool elevations and 30-day level history for most lakes come from NWPS reservoir gauges, which publish the readings reported by each lake's operator (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers districts, TVA, Duke Energy, Ameren, and Texas river authorities).

Public Domain Work

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) CWMS

Pool elevations for Broken Bow Lake, Dale Hollow Lake, and J. Percy Priest Lake come directly from the USACE Corps Water Management System data API.

Public Domain Work

USGS, Bureau of Reclamation, CDEC & Texas Water Development Board

Lake Powell elevations come from USGS National Water Information System gauge 09379900, Lake Mead from the Bureau of Reclamation RISE data service, Lake Shasta from the California Data Exchange Center, and Lake O' the Pines from the Texas Water Development Board.

Public Domain Work

NOAA / National Weather Service (NWS)

Each lake page shows the National Weather Service hourly forecast for the lake's coordinates, labeled as a forecast with its issue time, and links to the full NWS forecast. It is loaded live from the NWS API when you open the page, so it is never a stale copy; if NWS doesn't respond, the forecast is simply left off.

Public Domain Work

State Wildlife & Parks Departments

We link to each state fish and wildlife agency for current fishing regulations and boating laws rather than restating them, because limits and requirements change every year. Some boat ramp and park listings come from Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers lake pages.

Agency Public Records

Copernicus Sentinel-2

Lake pages show the latest low-cloud true-colour Sentinel-2 image with its capture date. Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data, processed via the Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem. We don't derive water-clarity or algae ratings from the imagery, because those estimates haven't been validated against measurements at these lakes.

Copernicus Open Licence

What We Leave Off

Our rule: if we can't confirm a value is accurate and current from an official source, we leave it off the site instead of estimating it. That currently applies to water temperature, except where an Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation game warden measured it in the past seven days (shown with the date; river and tailwater sensors below dams don't reflect lake conditions, so we don't use them), and algae status (check your state health or environmental agency; the EPA harmful algal blooms page is a starting point). Gauge readings more than 48 hours old are labeled as delayed.

Editorial Policy

OpenStreetMap (OSM) & MapLibre

Base map styling and separate geographic facility pins utilize OpenStreetMap data. © OpenStreetMap contributors. OSM data is utilized solely for client-side rendering.

ODbL Attribution