Sixty-one years of water levels in the lake that floats the Panama Canal — and the fingerprint El Niño leaves on every drought. Levels in feet (PLD).
Each line is one calendar year, tinted by the ONI of the El Niño/La Niña peak (DJF) driving that year's dry season. The pale band is the 10th–90th percentile of all years; 2026 is drawn bold with the official ACP projection dashed ahead of it. Hover any line to identify its year; use the presets or add years to compare.
Daily levels with warm shading during El Niño episodes (ONI ≥ +0.5) and cool shading during La Niña (≤ −0.5). Nearly every deep excursion sits inside — or immediately after — an amber band.
Each dot is a year: the winter ENSO peak (DJF ONI) against the lowest level the lake reached that January–May dry season.
Monthly level anomaly against that month's 61-year normal — amber is a dry lake, aqua a full one. The 1976–77, 1983, 1998, 2016 and 2019–24 droughts read as amber scars.