Skiatook Lake Water Level
Oklahoma · Hominy Creek
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Water level history
About Skiatook Lake
Skiatook Lake is a reservoir on the Hominy Creek in Oklahoma, operated by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Its full summer pool sits at 714 ft above sea level. Live water levels come from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (CWMS) and update hourly.
Understanding Skiatook Lake's water level
Skiatook Lake is a big lake on a small creek, and that mismatch explains almost everything it does. Its drainage area is 354 square miles, feeding a conservation pool of about 310,000 acre-feet, with only fifteen feet of flood storage above it. A Corps spokesman put it plainly during one drought: the lake acts somewhat like a yo-yo because of that small basin. There is not enough watershed to refill it quickly once it goes down, and not enough flood pool to hold much when it comes up fast.
The spillway is uncontrolled, crest at 732 feet, and everything else leaves through a single 10.5-foot conduit rated at 4,400 cubic feet per second. In late May 2019 the pool rose to about 731 feet, two feet above the top of the flood pool and within a foot of spilling, on a monthly inflow volume equal to 14.4 inches of runoff across the whole basin. The opposite extreme is just as well documented: in October 2014 the lake ran more than fifteen feet below normal, and an earlier drought took it to about 700 feet, fourteen feet down, with the Corps observing that the only cure was rain, and a lot of it. Skiatook supplies municipal water to the town of Skiatook and to Sand Springs, Sapulpa and Tulsa.
The lake sits inside the Osage Reservation, where the tribe holds the mineral estate beneath roughly 1.47 million acres and more than forty-two thousand wells have been drilled since 1896. That history put two oil leases on the shoreline under sustained scientific study: a joint US Geological Survey programme has documented salt scarring, tree kills and soil salinization at both, from a produced-water brine running around 150,000 milligrams per litre of dissolved solids. The important counterweight is that Corps monitoring finds no brine signal in the lake itself, with chloride running around 17 milligrams per litre. It is a near-shore legacy problem at specific leases, not a lake-wide condition. Water clarity follows the same pattern of local variation: around two metres of visibility at the dam, well under one metre in the upper arms.
Skiatook Lake — frequently asked
Why does Skiatook Lake's level swing so much?
It is a large reservoir on a small watershed. Only 354 square miles drain to the dam, feeding about 310,000 acre-feet of conservation storage with just fifteen feet of flood pool above it. A Corps spokesman described the lake as acting somewhat like a yo-yo for exactly that reason: there is not enough basin to refill it quickly after a drought, and not much room to absorb a big inflow.
What is Skiatook Lake's full pool elevation?
The top of the conservation pool is 714 feet above sea level. The top of the flood-control pool is 729 feet and the uncontrolled spillway crest is 732, with the top of the dam at 756. Because the spillway has no gates, all controlled release goes through a single 10.5-foot conduit rated at 4,400 cubic feet per second.
How high and how low has Skiatook Lake been?
In late May 2019 the pool reached about 731 feet, two feet above the top of the flood pool and within a foot of the spillway crest, driven by a monthly inflow equal to 14.4 inches of runoff across the basin. In October 2014 the lake ran more than fifteen feet below normal, and an earlier drought took it to roughly 700 feet, about fourteen feet down.
Is the water at Skiatook Lake clear?
It depends where you are. Corps monitoring found about two metres of Secchi visibility at the dam but well under one metre at the upper-lake sites, with the lake classed overall as eutrophic. So it is clear near the dam and turbid up the arms, on rocky, bluff-lined shoreline. Describing it as exceptionally clear lake-wide would not match the measurements.
Is Skiatook Lake affected by oil field contamination?
There is a documented problem at the shoreline, not in the lake. The lake sits in the Osage Reservation, where more than forty-two thousand wells have been drilled since 1896, and a US Geological Survey research programme has studied two oil leases beside the lake showing salt scarring, tree kills and soil salinization from a brine of roughly 150,000 milligrams per litre dissolved solids. Corps monitoring of the lake itself finds no brine signal, with chloride around 17 milligrams per litre.
What is at Tall Chief Cove?
The lake's main campground, with fifty electric sites, showers, a swim beach, disc golf, courts and a nature trail. The name comes from Tall Chief, the last traditionally selected hereditary chief of the Quapaw, who moved to the Skiatook area around 1870. He is not connected to the Tallchief ballet dancers of Fairfax, who were Osage. Other access points include Twin Points, Bull Creek and Cross Timbers Marina, with a five-mile trail running from the spillway to the marina.
Other lakes near Skiatook Lake
- Lake TenkillerOK
- Oologah LakeOK
- Lake TexomaTX/OK
- Lake of the ArbucklesOK
- Lake Altus-LugertOK
- Keystone LakeOK
See current levels for all 16 Oklahoma lakes and reservoirs →
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