Durham Reservoirs Dashboard
Lake Michie · Flat River watershed · updated Aug 23, 10:15 AM ET
Source readings from USGS and the City of Durham are provisional and subject to revision. Every value is shown with the time it was observed.
Seven-day inflow & outflow
Cubic feet per second (cfs) on a shared axis. From USGS instantaneous values.
Reservoir elevation
Daily snapshots of the City of Durham's published elevation, stored by this dashboard. Points before 2026-07-19 were digitized from the City's 30-day chart image (±0.3 ft) and are excluded from trend calculations. Provisional.
Rainfall near Lake Michie
updated 4 hr ago- Rougemont · upstream of Lake Michie
- 0.05 in today
- Timberlake · upstream of Lake Michie
- 0.03 in today
Source: Weather Underground personal weather stations (hobbyist gauges near or upstream of the reservoir — accuracy and siting vary). Daily totals reset at local midnight; today's bar is rain so far. Today's value is the mean across reporting stations.
What would it take to refill?
Lake Michie is 8.00 ft below full pool — at most 1326 million gallons (4070 acre-ft) of water to reach the spillway.
| To fill in… | Required net inflow | Equivalent | vs current 7-day avg |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7 days | 293 cfs | 2192 gal/s · 189 MGD | 1014.2× (20× seasonal median) |
| 30 days | 68.4 cfs | 512 gal/s · 44 MGD | 236.6× (5× seasonal median) |
| 90 days | 22.8 cfs | 171 gal/s · 15 MGD | 78.9× (2× seasonal median) |
Upper bound. Computed as deficit × full-pool surface area (509 acres — USGS WRI 93-4031 bathymetric survey (1992)); the true volume is somewhat less because the reservoir narrows with depth. "Net inflow" means water accumulating in the lake — on top of downstream releases, municipal withdrawals, and evaporation — so the river itself must carry more than these figures. Sustained flow at these rates within the period would be sufficient to refill.
Recovery interpretation
Measured surface flow is positive (about 1.1 cfs net into Lake Michie), but this excludes withdrawals and other losses, so the actual lake level may still be falling.
Estimate only. Net surface flow (inflow − outflow) excludes municipal withdrawals, smaller tributaries, direct rainfall, evaporation, groundwater exchange, and travel-time between gauges. It is not an exact reservoir water balance.