Lake Bowen Right Now
Lake Bowen's water level has been rising over the past week. Watershed conditions are abnormally dry. Today's forecast calls for sunny.
- 7-day level change
- Up 0.71 feet
- Forecast high
- 79°F
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Overview
Lake Bowen, officially Lake William C. Bowen, is the largest lake in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, set in the rolling piedmont about 14 miles north of Spartanburg and only a few miles from the North Carolina line. Created in 1960 by impounding the South Pacolet River, it is owned and operated by Spartanburg Water primarily as a public drinking-water supply, while also serving as a popular recreation lake.
Covering about 1,534 acres with roughly 33 miles of shoreline, Lake Bowen is a moderate-depth piedmont reservoir reaching around 41 feet at its deepest near the dam. Wooded shorelines, coves, and the flooded course of the South Pacolet River give the lake a mix of open water and protected fishing habitat, and it drains a watershed of roughly 91 square miles in Spartanburg and eastern Greenville counties.
Lake Bowen offers a productive fishery for striped bass, smallmouth and spotted bass, crappie, bream, and channel catfish, and it is a genuinely popular recreation lake with boating and bank fishing access. Fisheries are managed by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR), and Spartanburg Water maintains parks, boat ramps, and a fishing pier on the reservoir.
Water levels on Lake Bowen are managed by Spartanburg Water around a full-pool elevation of 815 feet above mean sea level (NGVD29). As a water-supply reservoir, its level responds to rainfall, drought, and withdrawals for the regional water system, and water released from Bowen flows downstream into Municipal Reservoir #1. Monitoring current lake levels is helpful for boating, fishing, and shoreline access throughout the year.
Lake Bowen is a 1,534-acre reservoir on the South Pacolet River managed by Spartanburg Water.