Most real estate sites blur the line between measured data, modeled estimates, and marketing. Here is ours, drawn clearly.
| Data | Source | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Water level, temperature, turbidity | USGS Water Data APIs — live sensor readings | Measured |
| Historical gauge trends | USGS daily values, up to 135 years of record | Measured |
| Water quality records | Water Quality Portal (USGS, EPA, 400+ agencies) | Measured |
| Reservoir operations | US Army Corps of Engineers | Measured |
| Lake physical attributes | Published lake management data, curated by us | Curated |
| Regulations, dock authority, STR posture | Agency and utility shoreline programs | Curated |
Every USGS station we publish has to carry the lake's own name. Early on our matcher picked the nearest station by distance, which gave Lake George the gauge for Great Sacandaga and Lake Norman the gauge for W. Kerr Scott Reservoir — different bodies of water entirely. Those readings looked completely credible and were completely wrong.
Now the name is a hard requirement. Where a station sits on the lake itself we say so. Where the only match is a stream on connected water, we label it a stream gauge and tell you it responds to storms and dam releases. Where nothing matches, we publish nothing. A blank space is honest; a neighbouring lake's water level is not.
Nothing is a black box. Each lake receives five sub-scores on a 1–10 scale, computed by formula from its own attributes:
Overall score weights them: water 26%, recreation 22%, investment 20%, value 18%, access 14%. If you disagree with those weights, that is a legitimate disagreement — the inputs are all shown on each lake page so you can weigh them yourself.
Advertising, affiliate commissions from service providers, subscriptions, data licensing, and merchandise. Some links are affiliate links and we may earn a commission. None of that changes a lake's score. Scores are computed from data before any commercial relationship exists, and no advertiser can alter one. If that ever changes, this page changes first.
Regulations change constantly and vary by municipality within a single lake. Drawdown schedules shift with drought and dam operations. A gauge can go offline or report stale data — where a reading is more than 30 days old, we say so on the page. Verify anything you are about to rely on. If you find an error, tell us and we will correct it and credit you.