How deep is Lake Travis?
About 210 feet at its deepest point when the lake is full — in the drowned Colorado River channel just upstream of Mansfield Dam — and about 58 feet on average. Both numbers move with the lake level, so the honest answer changes every day.
≈ 204 ft
at a lake level of 675.21 ft
≈ 57 ft
storage ÷ surface area
210 ft
deepest, at 681.0 ft above sea level
Live figures use the level observed . The deepest-point figure is an estimate: the published 210 ft full-pool maximum offset by today's level. The average is exact for the rating table.
Depth is not the same as the water level
Most of the confusion about how deep Lake Travis is comes from one habit: the number everyone quotes for the lake — 681.0 feet when it is full — is not a depth at all. It is an elevation, the height of the water surface above mean sea level. The lake bottom is not at sea level, so “681 feet” does not mean 681 feet of water.
Depth is the distance from the surface down to the bottom at one particular spot, and it is different everywhere. Off the end of a dock in a cove it may be six feet. Over the old river channel near the dam it is roughly 210 feet at full pool. What the two numbers share is their changes: when the level drops a foot, the depth drops a foot at every point on the lake. So the live level on the forecast page is all you need to convert any depth you know from a full-pool chart to today.
Where the deep water is
Lake Travis is a flooded river canyon, not a bowl. Before Mansfield Dam closed in 1941 the Colorado River ran through a limestone valley here, and the lake simply fills that valley to whatever level the dam holds. The deepest water follows the old river channel, which is why the deepest point sits at the downstream end, against the dam, and why the lake gets progressively shallower toward its upstream end around the Pedernales confluence and Marble Falls.
The dam itself gives the scale. Mansfield Dam is 278 feet high and 7,089 feet long, with its crest at 754 feet above sea level. That puts its foundation in the old riverbed near 476 feet — about 205 feet below the 681-foot full pool, which is how the commonly quoted 210-foot maximum comes about once the channel's own scour below the foundation is counted. Treat the maximum as “a little over 200 feet,” not a surveyed figure to the foot.
The dam's spillway is at 714 feet, its 24 floodgates begin operating once the lake passes 681 feet, and the top of the flood pool is 710.4 feet. Everything between 681 and 710 feet is water the lake is designed to hold temporarily during a flood — the floodgates page tracks when that happens.
Depth at every level the lake has seen
Deepest point is the 210 ft full-pool figure offset by elevation. Average depth is total storage divided by surface area, from the same bathymetric rating table the forecast uses.
| Lake level | Deepest point | Average depth | Surface area | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 614.18 ft | ≈ 143 ft | ≈ 40 ft | ≈ 7,230 acres | Record low, Aug 14, 1951 |
| 620.00 ft | ≈ 149 ft | ≈ 42 ft | ≈ 7,940 acres | 2011–2015 drought floor |
| 640.00 ft | ≈ 169 ft | ≈ 49 ft | ≈ 10,610 acres | |
| 660.00 ft | ≈ 189 ft | ≈ 54 ft | ≈ 14,180 acres | |
| 681.00 ft | ≈ 210 ft | ≈ 58 ft | ≈ 19,100 acres | Full (conservation) pool |
| 700.00 ft | ≈ 229 ft | ≈ 63 ft | ≈ 24,310 acres | Well into the flood pool |
| 710.31 ft | ≈ 239 ft | ≈ 65 ft | ≈ 27,770 acres | Record high, Dec 26, 1991 |
| 675.21 ft | ≈ 204 ft | ≈ 57 ft | ≈ 17,717 acres | Today |
Two things stand out. First, the deepest point never gets anywhere near empty: even at the 614.18-foot record low of August 1951, there was still about 143 feet of water against the dam. A “low” Lake Travis is a lake with its coves and upper arms drained, not a shallow one. Second, the average barely moves compared with the surface area. Between full pool and the 1951 low the average depth falls from about 58 to about 40 feet, but the surface area shrinks from roughly 19,000 acres to 7,200 — the lake loses far more width than depth, because the shallow margins go first.
That is also why a foot of level is worth so much less water when the lake is low, and why it refills so fast when it is: elevation change is storage divided by area. The drought page shows what that has meant across 86 years, and the methodology page walks through the arithmetic the forecast is built on.
What depth means on the water
Boaters. The number that matters is not the maximum but the depth over whatever is under you, and that changes with the level. A point, a shoal or an old fence line that sat 30 feet down at full pool is within reach of a propeller once the lake has fallen 25 feet — which it has done in most of the drought years on record. Local charts are drawn for full pool; subtract today's distance below full from every sounding.
Ramps. The lake level, not the depth at the dam, decides whether a ramp reaches the water. LCRA publishes a minimum level for each one, and the boat ramps page compares today's level with each minimum.
Swimmers. Near the dam the lake is deep enough that the water below the top layer stays cold all summer. The buoy at Mansfield Dam measures the surface; see the water temperature page for what that reading is and how it moves through the year.
Divers. Lake Travis is a popular Texas dive lake precisely because its depth near the dam is unusual for the state. Visibility and thermoclines are the constraint, not depth — and again, every published site depth assumes full pool.
How these numbers are produced
The lake level comes from LCRA's gauge at Mansfield Dam, cross-checked against the USGS and NOAA gauges. Storage and surface area at that level come from the bathymetric area–capacity table for Lake Travis, the same one the forecast model uses, so the average depth on this page is an exact consequence of the measured level. The deepest-point figure is the published full-pool maximum offset by the level; nobody surveys the deepest hole daily, and a reader should treat it as accurate to within a few feet. The record high of 710.31 feet and record low of 614.18 feet are from the Texas Water Development Board's daily record, charted in full on the history page.
Lake Travis water level — common questions
How deep is Lake Travis?
Lake Travis is about 210 feet deep at its deepest point, in the old Colorado River channel just upstream of Mansfield Dam, when the lake is at its full pool of 681.0 feet above sea level. With the lake at 675.21 feet as of September 25, 2026, the deepest water is roughly 204 feet. Most of Lake Travis is far shallower than its deepest point.
What is the average depth of Lake Travis?
The average depth of Lake Travis is about 57 feet at its current level of 675.21 feet — total storage divided by surface area. At full pool the average is about 58 feet, because the lake is a flooded river canyon: deep along the old channel and shallow across its coves and arms.
Is the Lake Travis water level the same as its depth?
No. The Lake Travis water level (for example 681.0 feet at full pool) is an elevation above mean sea level, not a depth. Depth is the water between the surface and the bottom at one spot, and it varies from a few feet in a cove to roughly 210 feet at the dam. A one-foot change in level is a one-foot change in depth everywhere on the lake.
Where is Lake Travis deepest?
Lake Travis is deepest at its downstream end, in the submerged Colorado River channel immediately upstream of Mansfield Dam near Lakeway and Hudson Bend. The dam is 278 feet high, and the water against it reaches roughly 210 feet at full pool. The lake grows shallower toward its upstream end near Marble Falls.
Where the level — and so the depth — goes next is the 10-day forecast. Dam figures: LCRA. Depth maximum: commonly published full-pool figure, see above.