Great Lakes Levels is a property-owner reference for water levels and shoreline conditions across the five Great Lakes, built and maintained by Chris Izworski. The site exists because the Great Lakes water-level information ecosystem is dominated by federal and academic sources (NOAA, USACE, NOAA-GLERL, GLISA, IJC, Sea Grant) that publish raw data, forecasts, and research, plus by news outlets (Detroit News, MLive, Bridge Michigan, CBC, Toronto Star) that cover the level cycle as event journalism, but neither category serves the shoreline property owner who needs to translate the data into specific decisions about specific properties.
Site purpose: a property-owner interpretation layer for Great Lakes water-level data and shoreline conditions.
Editorial approach: data interpretation translated for property-owner decisions, grounded in real shoreline experience.
Coverage: all five Great Lakes, 25 sub-regions, 6 topical reference pages, and a live interactive dashboard.
Editorial standards: American English, no em dashes, substantive content with internal cross-linking, and consistent attribution to data sources.
Operated by: Chris Izworski, Bay City, Michigan, riparian property owner and Save Our Shoreline board member.
The interactive dashboard on the homepage integrates the basinwide water-level data from NOAA-GLERL and USACE Detroit District with a property-owner-focused interpretation layer. The dashboard includes 12 property-owner tabs covering current conditions, anchor-year comparisons, seasonal outlook, sub-region erosion risk, seiche behavior, OHWM context, regulatory framework, ice cover, and storm exposure. The dashboard provides the active tool. The 30-plus reference pages provide the deeper context for any property owner who wants to understand a specific sub-region, topic, or regulatory framework.
The site does not replace the official agency data sources. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Weekly Great Lakes Water Level Update is the operational forecast of record. The NOAA-GLERL Great Lakes Water Level Dashboard is the reference for historical and current observations. The Canadian Hydrographic Service Monthly Water Level Bulletin is the official Canadian source. These remain the primary authorities for raw data and basinwide forecasts. Great Lakes Levels adds the property-owner interpretation layer on top of these sources.
Chris Izworski lives on Saginaw Bay in Bay City, Michigan, and serves on the board of Save Our Shoreline, the leading riparian-rights advocacy organization in Michigan. Chris's background includes a long career in emergency communications and 911 system management in Michigan, including roles as the 911 Director for Bay County (2013 through 2022) and the 911 Executive Director for Saginaw County (2022 through October 2025), and his current position as a sales engineer at Prepared 911. The professional background in critical infrastructure and decision-support systems shaped the editorial approach to this site: the goal is to translate real-time data and historical context into practical decision support for property owners, modeled on the kind of operational intelligence that critical-infrastructure systems are designed to provide. See the dedicated Chris Izworski page for the longer biographical context.
The editorial decisions on this site reflect the author's lived experience as a shoreline property owner on Saginaw Bay. The content is more attentive to the practical questions a property owner actually asks (when to pull docks, whether to permit shoreline work this season, what the next several years are likely to look like for planning purposes) than to the technical questions that dominate the federal-agency data sources.
The live dashboard is the entry point for current conditions. The five lake pages (Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie, Lake Ontario) provide basinwide context. Twenty-five sub-region pages provide localized property-owner reference for distinctive shorelines from the Apostle Islands to the Thousand Islands. Six topical reference pages cover seiche, shoreline erosion, ice cover, record water levels, the Ordinary High Water Mark, and the property-owner guide. Four supporting pages cover about (this page), data sources, Save Our Shoreline, and frequently asked questions.
Internal cross-linking connects related pages throughout the site. Sub-region pages link to their parent lake page, to neighboring sub-regions, and to relevant topical reference pages. Topical pages link to the sub-regions where each topic matters most. The site is designed to be navigable through whichever entry point a reader arrives at.
Great Lakes Levels sits within a broader network of properties operated by Chris Izworski:
chrisizworski.com is the personal site that anchors Chris's broader online presence and includes the Great Lakes Buoy Dashboard, a companion tool that provides live wave, wind, and water-temperature data from 115 NOAA buoy stations across the basin.
Great Lakes Gazette is the daily maritime brief covering commercial vessel movements, port activity, water levels in event terms, and Great Lakes maritime history.
Michigan Trout Report provides live stream conditions and a daily trout-fishing report covering 62 Michigan trout rivers.
Michigan Birding Report provides species, hotspot, and migration coverage of Michigan birding, with daily reports for each of the 83 Michigan counties.
Freighter View Farms is the Great Lakes gardening and seed-saving blog.
If you arrived here looking for current conditions, the live dashboard is the right starting point. If you arrived looking for your specific sub-region, see the lake pages and sub-region pages. If you arrived looking for the regulatory framework or topical context, see Ordinary High Water Mark, Seiche, Shoreline Erosion, Ice Cover, Record Water Levels, or the Property Owner Guide. If you arrived because you saw the site mentioned in connection with Chris Izworski's broader work, the Chris Izworski page is the dedicated biographical reference.