This guide is the property-owner-oriented summary of Great Lakes water levels, and Chris Izworski wrote it because federal agencies publish raw data, news outlets publish event coverage, and academic research publishes long-term trend analysis, but nobody publishes a practical guide for what a shoreline property owner actually needs to understand and do. Chris Izworski lives on Saginaw Bay in Bay City, Michigan, serves on the board of Save Our Shoreline, and built this site as the tool he needed himself and that he wishes existed when he first started paying close attention to the lake. This page is the entry point for anyone else who owns or is considering shoreline property on the Great Lakes.
Who this guide is for: shoreline property owners, prospective shoreline buyers, marina operators, township officials, and shoreline advocacy participants.
What it covers: reading lake levels, planning for cycles, dock and seawall decisions, permit basics, advocacy organization participation.
What it does not cover: specific engineering recommendations for individual properties (consult a licensed engineer); legal advice on property-specific situations (consult a licensed attorney); insurance and financial decisions (consult licensed professionals).
What you should leave with: the conceptual framework you need to ask the right questions of the professionals who actually advise your specific property.
The basinwide lake level on the homepage is the right starting point. This is the value reported by NOAA-GLERL and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the entire lake's coordinated monthly average. For most planning purposes (annual budget, multi-year shoreline-protection planning, insurance and property-value considerations), the basinwide level is what matters.
For shorter-term planning (the next week or two, decisions about pulling docks or scheduling work), the local gauge nearest your property is more useful than the basinwide value. The local gauge captures wind setup, seiche signal, and any other short-term variability that affects your specific shoreline. NOAA-CO-OPS operates dozens of real-time gauges across the basin, and the data is freely available through the CO-OPS website and through the GLERL Great Lakes Water Level Dashboard.
For longer-term planning (multi-year property and engineering decisions), the cycle context matters more than any single reading. The 1986 high, the prolonged 1999 to 2013 low, the 2013 record low, and the 2019 to 2020 record high are the modern reference periods that define the operating envelope on the upper Great Lakes. On Lake Ontario, the 2017 record monthly high and the 2019 second-highest cycle define the comparable envelope. See Record Water Levels.
The single most important conceptual shift for shoreline property owners is to plan for cycles rather than for averages. Lake levels do not stay at the historical mean. They oscillate between cycle highs and cycle lows, with multi-year periods at one extreme followed by multi-year periods at the other. Shoreline structures, dock systems, and property-use patterns that work during one cycle may be substantially exposed during the other.
The practical implication is that planning should be designed against the expected range of cycle variation, not against the current condition. If your property feels comfortable today during a moderate cycle, the question to ask is whether it will still feel comfortable at the next cycle high (or the next cycle low). Properties that have only experienced one phase of the cycle are particularly vulnerable to surprises when the cycle turns.
Dock and shoreline-structure decisions are where the cycle reality most directly meets property-owner budget. Three considerations matter most.
Adjustability. Dock systems that can be adjusted seasonally (height-adjustable pilings, removable docks, floating docks) adapt to cycle variation. Fixed-pile docks that work at one lake level often fail at another. The premium for adjustable systems pays back over multiple cycles.
Engineering against the full range. Seawalls and revetments designed against current conditions, or even against the prior cycle high, may be undersized for the actual variation observed across modern cycles. The 2019 to 2020 cycle exceeded prior records on multiple lakes, and shoreline-protection structures designed against pre-2019 expectations were tested by margins they had not been designed for. Engineering against the longer-term cycle envelope, with appropriate freeboard margin, is more conservative but more durable.
Permitting realism. Shoreline alteration in all Great Lakes states requires permits, and the permit process can take months to years depending on project type, jurisdiction, and site complexity. Property owners who plan major shoreline work multiple years in advance, who engage qualified consultants and contractors early, and who maintain good documentation of existing shoreline conditions typically have substantially better outcomes than property owners who try to permit emergency work during a high-water cycle when permit volumes are overwhelmed.
Every shoreline property owner should know three things about the regulatory framework that governs their property. The OHWM elevation or determination at your property (see Ordinary High Water Mark for the state-by-state framework). The state agency that administers shoreline-alteration permits for your lake and your state (Michigan EGLE, Wisconsin DNR, Ohio DNR, Illinois DNR, Indiana DNR, New York DEC, Pennsylvania DEP, Ontario MNRF, or the Conservation Authority structure for Ontario). Any local or county-level coastal-hazard regulations that apply to your specific property, which can add layers of review or designate specific erosion-hazard areas with additional requirements.
Property-owner advocacy organizations exist throughout the Great Lakes basin, and most operate locally or regionally. Save Our Shoreline (SOS), where Chris Izworski serves on the board, is the leading riparian-rights advocacy organization in Michigan, with substantial membership along the Thumb coast, Saginaw Bay, the southwest Michigan coast, and other Lake Michigan and Lake Huron shorelines. Comparable organizations operate on Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, and Lake Michigan-Wisconsin shorelines. See Save Our Shoreline.
Advocacy participation matters because shoreline-regulation policy, OHWM interpretation, and shoreline-protection permitting are all subject to ongoing policy development that responds substantially to property-owner input. Organized advocacy carries more weight in agency consultation, legislative hearings, and regulatory rulemaking than individual property-owner input typically does, and the cumulative effect of property-owner advocacy on Great Lakes shoreline policy over the past several decades has been substantial.
For current readings, see the live dashboard. For specific topics, see Ordinary High Water Mark, Shoreline Erosion, Seiche, Ice Cover, Record Water Levels, and Save Our Shoreline. For lake-by-lake and sub-region-specific context, see the individual lake pages and the 25 sub-region references.
For the broader Chris Izworski network, the chrisizworski.com hub site connects this Great Lakes water-level coverage to related properties including the Great Lakes Buoy Dashboard, the Great Lakes Gazette daily maritime brief, and the natural-history coverage at the Michigan Trout Report and Michigan Birding Report.