Suicide Basin is a side basin of the Mendenhall Glacier above Juneau, Alaska. Since 2011, Suicide Basin has released glacier lake outburst floods that cause inundation along Mendenhall Lake and River annually with a new record major flood event taking place on August 13, 2025. The latest release took place on September 15, 2025 with minor flooding observed.
Monitoring Equipment Status:
The USGS is in the process of turning on the monitoring equipment and currently both the front and main basin cameras are sending images once a day. Over the next week or two the laser water level data will be back online sending data and the USGS will be installing another camera looking at the overflow channel.
Basin/River Status: June 1, 2026
The Mendenhall Lake and River is below normal water levels due to colder than normal temperatures and low freezing levels. As temperatures warm through June this will increase snow and ice melt runoff to produce water levels to rise.
Suicide Basin water level is steadily rising slowly as seen on webcam imagery with the current elevation around 1153ft. This time last year(2025) the water level elevation was around 1119ft but in 2023 it was 1203ft. The current amount of water in the basin right now would not produce an impactful flooding event if an outburst event happened now. As with the water levels of Mendenhall Lake, the amount of filling (input) into the basin will increase as temperatures rise to produce more runoff from the melting of snow and ice through the summer months.
NWS will continue to monitor the basin and release any new information at least once a week on Mondays, so check back for updates.
Here is the NWS event report from the record 16.65ft major flooding event that occurred on August 13th 2025.
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