Can anyone tell me why Rayburn levels are dropping? I was here 3 weeks ago and levels seemed to be fine for this time of year, but today it was about 5 feet low.

Rayburn is controlled by the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). They typically lower a lake when they expect a large amount of water coming from upstream. This could be the case with all the rain we are having in North Texas. The USACE is moving about 1000 cfs through most of the reservoirs right now. They could also be lowering the lake to do gate inspections or maintenance.

They are working on the dam. The big storms a few months ago raised the water level and now they are slowly bringing it back down to continue their work.

There is a great site to check lakes levels:
https://waterdatafortexas.org/reservoirs/statewide

Thanks all I found an article back in June saying the lake will be drawn down to 158 ft for up to a year. So I guessing it’s going to be about 6.5 ft low for a while if not lower during the hot months.

Correct, you can watch the work being done as we speak.

If that keep that lake low for a year or more and allow stuff to grow in places it hasn't in years, that will supercharge it here in a couple years.