1942 108mw Mansfield Dam and Lake Travis on Colorado River near Marshall Ford, TX

(Satellite)

Street View, Mar 2025

lcra
"Lake Travis is the only lake in the Highland Lakes chain specifically designed to hold back floodwaters. Lake Travis is considered full for water supply purposes at 681 feet msl. At that level, the lake contains 1.1 million acre-feet of water. Lake Travis is designed to hold an additional 776,062 acre-feet of floodwaters in what is referred to as the flood pool."
The dam is 7,089 (2,160m) long and 278' (85m) tall. It has a generating capacity of 108mw. Spillway elevation is 714', and the top of the dam is 750'.
The total discharge capacity is more than 131kcfs.

2025:

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2026 also got a lot of rain. In some places, this year's record broke the record set just last year. Lake Travis is now 100% full, the first time since 2019.

cbsaustin
One floodgate was opened early on Jul 18, and the second one was expected to open on Jul 19.

Boating is not allowed on the lakes while some gates are open.

CBS Austin posted
 https://cbsaustin.com/.../lcra-opens-floodgates-at-tom...
"Lake Travis, which forms behind Mansfield Dam, was expected to rise to a range of 685 to 686 feet above mean sea level through the day Saturday, LCRA said. The lake reached 'full' capacity of 681 feet Friday night for the first time since July 2019, after rising 9 feet in 24 hours, according to CBS Austin meteorologists."
[So the lake got 5' above conservation level.]

When two floodgates were open.

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This water release was the 9th time since it was completed in 1941. [reddit]

Even though the dam has 24 floodgates, the most that have been used is six in 1957. [lcra_rehabilitation]

Kristen Currie posted
As of 9:40PM, Lake Travis is officially at 100% full. First time in 7 years.

Nov 2026 Rains

Meteorologist Avery Tomasco posted

Let's start with the good news: Lake Travis is nearing FULL capacity this morning! Just 9" to go after a three-foot boost since Monday and 60,000 more acre-feet of water to enjoy. That's equivalent to 78 billion large Whataburger drinks, for perspective. 

Bad news: Our lakes are nearly full. I need to do some deeper digging, but I don't think the Highland Lakes have ever been this full heading into an El Nino fall/winter season... Let alone a Super El Nino event. 

Reminder that some of our biggest river floods have occurred during El Nino-fueled rainy seasons. With the lakes near full capacity, there is a much smaller buffer to work with before floodgate operations are needed in the event of another river flood. 

While that brings some cause for concern, Lake Travis/Mansfield Dam was constructed with exactly this situation in mind. Above the "full pool" of 681ft, there's another 30+ FEET of "flood pool" which nearly doubles how much water can be stored in extreme flooding situations before water starts flowing over the spillway. That has never happened in the dams history, but we got close back in December of 1991 when Lake Travis topped 710ft elevation.

Avery commented on this post
Here's what that looks like at Lake Travis: 681 feet is full for water storage purposes, but 714 feet is the maximum elevation for capturing a significant flood event in an emergency. 710 feet is the highest Lake Travis has ever been since Mansfield was constructed; water has never flowed unrestricted over the spillway.