Kerr Lake (Buggs Island Lake) Water Level
Virginia & North Carolina · Roanoke River
Full pool is the summer level. Kerr Lake (Buggs Island Lake) is drawn down about 4.5 ft to roughly 295.5 ft over winter for flood storage, so a lower reading outside the summer season is usually scheduled rather than drought.
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Water level history
About Kerr Lake (Buggs Island Lake)
Kerr Lake (Buggs Island Lake) is a reservoir on the Roanoke River in Virginia & North Carolina, operated by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It's the largest reservoir in Virginia. Its full summer pool sits at 300 ft above sea level. Live water levels come from USGS gauge 02079490 and update every 15 to 60 minutes.
Understanding Kerr Lake (Buggs Island Lake)'s water level
Kerr Lake carries two official names and a small piece of interstate history. Authorized in 1944 as Buggs Island Reservoir, it was renamed in 1952 by Congress for John H. Kerr, the North Carolina congressman who secured it. Virginia, which holds the dam and about three quarters of the water, responded with a General Assembly resolution declaring it would forever more be called Buggs Island Lake. The truce came in 2015, when a bill allowed Virginia agencies to also use the Kerr name. Both are correct.
Its operating rule is the thing worth knowing. The boundary between the conservation and flood pools is fixed at 300 feet, but the guide curve moves through the year: 295.5 feet flat from December through February, rising through March and April to 302.0 feet, held flat through May, easing to 299.5 by the end of June, held there through September, then falling back to 295.5 by the end of November. So the lake is at its fullest in May, not midsummer, and every winter it sits four and a half feet below the number on the sign. That May pool is deliberate and it is fish water. The striped bass run on the Roanoke peaks around 1 May near Weldon, North Carolina, and storage between 299.5 and 302.0 has been reserved for spawning flows since a 1971 agreement, with published targets measured at the Roanoke Rapids gauge running from 6,600 to 13,700 cubic feet per second in early April down to 4,000 to 9,500 by mid-June.
Above the guide curve there is a great deal of room: another twenty vertical feet and 1,281,400 acre-feet of flood storage before water reaches the top of the twenty-two spillway gates at 320 feet. The record high is 319.61 feet on 29 April 1987, within five inches of those gate tops. Hurricane Fran brought the second highest, 318.52 feet in September 1996. Hurricane Floyd, by contrast, is widely assumed to have flooded Kerr and did not: the lake was drought-low at 295.1 feet when Floyd arrived in September 1999, the Corps cut outflow to under 80 cubic feet per second for a week while the lower Roanoke drowned, and the pool peaked that month at only 302.6. The current water control plan, approved in 2016 after fifteen years of study with The Nature Conservancy, exists to make releases mimic natural river flow for the largest intact bottomland hardwood forest on the Atlantic coast.
Kerr Lake (Buggs Island Lake) — frequently asked
Why is Kerr Lake called both Kerr and Buggs Island?
It was authorized in 1944 as Buggs Island Reservoir, after an island near the dam site, then renamed by Congress in 1952 for John H. Kerr, the North Carolina congressman who secured the authorization. Virginia, which contains the dam and most of the water, passed a resolution declaring it would forever more be called Buggs Island Lake. In 2015 a Virginia bill allowed state and local agencies to also use the Kerr name, so both are now official.
What is Kerr Lake's guide curve through the year?
It moves. The target is 295.5 feet flat from December through February, rising through March and April to 302.0 feet, held flat through May, easing to 299.5 feet by the end of June and held through September, then falling back to 295.5 by the end of November. So the lake is fullest in May rather than midsummer, and spends each winter four and a half feet below the 300-foot conservation pool.
Is Kerr Lake low in winter because of drought?
Usually not. The published guide curve holds the lake at 295.5 feet from December through February, four and a half feet below the 300-foot number people think of as full pool. That extra space is deliberate winter flood storage. A visitor in January comparing the gauge against 300 feet will think the lake is down when it is exactly where the Corps intends it to be.
Why is Kerr Lake highest in May?
Striped bass. The Roanoke River run peaks around 1 May near Weldon, North Carolina, and since a 1971 agreement the storage between 299.5 and 302.0 feet has been reserved for spawning flows. The guide curve therefore holds 302.0 feet through May, two feet up into the flood pool, so the Corps has water banked to meet published downstream flow targets between 1 April and 15 June.
What are Kerr Lake's record high and low levels?
The record high is 319.61 feet on 29 April 1987, within five inches of the top of the closed spillway gates at 320. Hurricane Fran produced the second highest at 318.52 feet in September 1996, and April 2003 the third at 317.16. The record low is 280.23 feet on 3 February 1956, in the reservoir's earliest years. Modern lows include 290.97 feet in December 2001.
Did Hurricane Floyd flood Kerr Lake?
No, and this is commonly assumed. Kerr was drought-depleted at 295.1 feet when Floyd arrived in September 1999. Inflow spiked to nearly 63,000 cubic feet per second, but the Corps cut outflow to under 80 cubic feet per second for about a week, holding everything back while the lower Roanoke was in catastrophic flood. The pool peaked that month at only 302.6 feet, nowhere near the flood pool.
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