Chris Izworski lives on Saginaw Bay, a major sub-basin of Lake Huron, which makes Lake Huron the most personally observed of the five lakes covered on this site. From a Bay City vantage on the western shore of Saginaw Bay, the lake's behavior is something you watch every day: the wind direction that piles water against your shoreline or pulls it away, the seiche that arrives a few hours after a strong front, the slow seasonal shift between spring high and late-fall draw-down. The dashboard on this site is built to surface those patterns at a glance, but a reference page like this one is what context-rich property-owner questions actually need.
Surface area: 23,000 square miles (Lake Huron basin only).
Average depth: 195 feet. Maximum depth: 750 feet.
Datum: 577.50 feet IGLD85, hydrologically the same as Lake Michigan.
Major sub-basins: Saginaw Bay, the North Channel, Georgian Bay, the open lake, Thunder Bay.
Outflow: through the St. Clair River into Lake Erie.
Because Lake Huron sits hydrologically with Lake Michigan, the level signals are the same: the same anchor years matter, the same six-and-a-half-foot historical range applies, the same long-term cycles dominate the multi-decade picture. What differs is the local response. Lake Huron has more enclosed sub-basins than Lake Michigan, including Saginaw Bay, the North Channel, and Georgian Bay, and each of these reacts to the basinwide level differently because of their geometry, depth, and exposure.
For property owners, the difference between Lake Huron-side reading and Lake Michigan-side reading is usually about which sub-region the dashboard's storm exposure module is showing. Same basinwide level, very different local water at the shoreline.
The Thumb of Michigan runs from Port Huron up the eastern Michigan shoreline through Lexington, Port Sanilac, Harbor Beach, Port Hope, Caseville, and into the southern entrance of Saginaw Bay. This is high-exposure shoreline with a long northeast fetch, and the same storms that trouble the Bruce Peninsula on the Canadian side push water onto the Thumb coast.
Saginaw Bay deserves its own page, and it has one. See the Saginaw Bay reference for the full treatment of this sub-basin.
Tawas Bay and Au Sable Point sit on the north shore of the Thumb's outer arc, where the Au Sable River reaches Lake Huron at AuSable, Michigan. This is a shorter-fetch, more sheltered shoreline than the Thumb, with different storm patterns and different property-owner concerns.
Cheboygan, Mackinaw City, and the Straits coastline sit at the connection point between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. The currents through the Straits of Mackinac run both directions depending on the wind and the relative basin levels, and this transitional shoreline has its own dynamics distinct from either open lake.
The Canadian shoreline includes Georgian Bay (a major sub-basin in its own right), the North Channel along Manitoulin Island, and the open Lake Huron coast running south from Tobermory through Goderich and Bayfield to the St. Clair River. Georgian Bay water levels track the basinwide value but the bay is shallow enough in many sections that local seiche and wind setup matter more for shoreline experience than the basin number alone.
The Michigan Ordinary High Water Mark on Lake Huron is 581.5 feet IGLD85, set by NREPA Section 32502. Same statutory line as Lake Michigan, because they are the same hydrologic lake. Save Our Shoreline, the riparian advocacy organization where Chris Izworski serves on the board, has long-standing positions on how this regulatory line is applied along the Michigan shore.
The eastern Michigan coastline along the Thumb has accumulated significant erosion damage during the 2019 to 2020 high water cycle and the storms that followed. Public Act 451 governs the relationship between private riparian owners and submerged lands, and high water cycles routinely test the boundaries of how that statute is applied. Property owners along the Thumb who are evaluating shoreline protection projects should consult both the EGLE permitting framework and a licensed coastal engineer familiar with the specific local exposure.
For a current reading, see the live dashboard. For Saginaw Bay specifically, see the Saginaw Bay page. For neighboring lake context, see Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, and Lake Erie.
For deeper Saginaw Bay reference material outside this site, see Chris Izworski's Saginaw Bay ecology reference on chrisizworski.com. The Au Sable River, which reaches Lake Huron at AuSable, is also one of the rivers tracked daily on Michigan Trout Report.