Hugo Lake Water Level
Oklahoma · Kiamichi River
Sponsor Hugo Lake
Put your marina, real-estate, or local business in front of everyone checking this lake's level. One exclusive sponsor per lake.
Cancel anytime · Questions?
Water level history
About Hugo Lake
Hugo Lake is a reservoir on the Kiamichi River in Oklahoma, operated by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Its full summer pool sits at 404.5 ft above sea level. Live water levels come from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (CWMS) and update hourly.
Understanding Hugo Lake's water level
Hugo Lake is the only dam impounding the Kiamichi River, and that fact carries more weight than the usual reservoir statistics. The Kiamichi holds the only substantial surviving population of the Ouachita rock pocketbook, a mussel listed as endangered in 1991, spread across roughly eighty-eight miles of river upstream of the lake, at sites where as many as sixteen mussel species live together. The broader basin carries twenty endangered animal species, twelve of them mussels. Federal recovery documents name Hugo Reservoir itself among the causes: filling it in 1974 flooded the lower Kiamichi and eliminated habitat, including at least one historical site for the species.
The dam is built for a very wet river that is sometimes not wet at all. Six tainter gates, each forty by fifty feet, can pass 365,000 cubic feet per second, and the flood pool from 404.5 up to 437.5 feet holds nearly seven times the conservation storage. Annual inflow has ranged from about 484,000 to 3,050,000 acre-feet, a six-to-one spread between dry and wet years, which is the underlying reason the pool moves so much. Releases are judged not on the Kiamichi but on the Red River stage at DeKalb, Texas, and are capped by a bank-full channel capacity of 20,000 cubic feet per second below the dam. The record pool is 440.11 feet on 25 May 2015, inside the surcharge pool and within half a foot of its top, narrowly above the 1990 flood's 439.96.
Two other things shape the place. Sediment has cut the conservation pool hard: design storage was about 158,600 acre-feet, a 2003 survey measured 141,000, and the current figure is under 120,000. And the lake's water has been fought over. In the late 2000s the City of Hugo contracted to sell water to Irving, Texas, and sued Oklahoma's water board over out-of-state restrictions; the Tenth Circuit ended it in 2011 by ruling that Hugo, as a subdivision of the state, had no standing to sue, so the constitutional question was never decided. The state park lost its designation in 2013 over visitor counts that a state senator disputed, and the park has been run by a community action agency since 2002. It operates the only marina on the lake.
Hugo Lake — frequently asked
What is Hugo Lake's full pool elevation?
The top of the conservation pool is 404.5 feet above sea level. The top of the flood-control pool is 437.5 feet, the surcharge pool reaches 440.5, and the top of the dam is 452.5. That is 33 feet of flood storage holding close to seven times the conservation volume, which is why the lake is best understood as a flood-control project first.
What is Hugo Lake's record high level?
440.11 feet on 25 May 2015, which is inside the surcharge pool and within half a foot of its top. That narrowly exceeded the previous record of 439.96 feet set during the 1990 flood, when peak inflow reached 120,000 cubic feet per second on 3 May.
Why does Hugo Lake's level swing so much year to year?
Because the Kiamichi does. Recorded annual inflow to the lake has ranged from about 484,000 acre-feet in dry years to 3,050,000 in wet ones, a six-to-one spread. Releases are also constrained: they are set against the Red River stage at DeKalb, Texas rather than local conditions, and bank-full capacity below the dam caps them at 20,000 cubic feet per second.
Why is the Kiamichi River ecologically important?
It holds the only substantial surviving population of the Ouachita rock pocketbook, a freshwater mussel listed as endangered in 1991, across roughly eighty-eight miles of river above Hugo Lake, at sites supporting as many as sixteen mussel species together. The basin as a whole carries twenty endangered animal species, twelve of them mussels. Federal recovery documents note that filling Hugo Reservoir in 1974 eliminated habitat in the lower river.
Is Hugo Lake filling with sediment?
Substantially, yes. Design conservation storage was about 158,600 acre-feet. A 2003 volumetric survey measured 141,000 acre-feet, an eleven percent loss against the earlier survey basis, and the current published figure is under 120,000. Any comparison of Hugo capacity numbers across decades needs to account for that, because the older figures are still widely quoted.
Is Hugo Lake still a state park?
Not officially. Oklahoma removed its state park designation on 26 June 2013, citing low attendance figures that a state senator disputed, pointing out the state counted 2,982 visitors while Corps data showed over 133,000. The park has been operated by a community action agency since 2002 and continues to run resort and primitive cabins, a hospitality house, tent sites and the only marina on the lake, with 56 slips.
Other lakes near Hugo Lake
- Kaw LakeOK
- Foss ReservoirOK
- Keystone LakeOK
- Fort Gibson LakeOK
- Lake of the ArbucklesOK
- Fort Cobb ReservoirOK
See current levels for all 16 Oklahoma lakes and reservoirs →
Add this gauge to your website
Run a marina, boat rental, guide service, or real-estate site on Hugo Lake? Put this free live-level widget on your page — just copy and paste the code: