Weekly Lake Data!

Skaneateles Lake temperature, lake elevation and discharges data is posted weekly by the City of Syracuse - click here for lake data. You can also pull the link from the City of Syracuse Water Department website.

Dive Deeper! You can also find more comprehensive Skaneateles Lake data on the USGS Water Quality Data Viewer.

Drinking Water: Intake Extension Project Details

The Ups and Downs of Skaneateles Lake webinar recording

Skaneateles Lake Water Management: Lake Elevation Data

The elevation of Skaneateles Lake is recorded as feet above sea level. Lake levels are reported in Syracuse Datum which is 1.75 ft. above the National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929 (NGVD 29) established for vertical control surveying in the US. The mean high-water level of Skaneateles Lake is 863.27 Syracuse Datum or 865.02 NGVD 29. This specified level of 863.27 (Syracuse Datum) is not a true mean or average and is more accurately defined as: the maximum safe operating lake level where no, or minimal damage from flooding is known to occur.

In accordance with the June 28, 2004 Filtration Avoidance conditions: the Syracuse Water Department manages the water elevation of Skaneateles Lake in an effort to reduce turbidity related to low lake levels. A Desired Range was established and approved by the New York State Department of Health as part of the June 1992 Lake Level and Related Issues Report. The range sets a high and low elevation for each month. The lowest desired range is set for February 1st at 861.25 and the highest desired range is 863.27 for July 1st and August 1st.

Sufficient water storage to ensure an adequate water supply during the summer months requires that an elevation of 863.00 feet be reached by early June. Failure to reach this elevation greatly increased the threat and problems of low water in the late summer and fall. Extreme weather conditions such as above average precipitation or drought conditions may result in lake levels fluctuating outside the desired range for a period of time depending on the severity of the weather conditions.

Records dating back to 1951 document the following high and low lake elevations (a lake elevation range of 8.15 feet):

Max (1st of month) lake elevation: 865.15 feet (July 1972)
Min. (1st of month) lake elevation: 857.00 feet (March 1989)

Flows through the Skaneateles Lake outlet range from a minimum of six million gallons per day (MGD) to a maximum outflow capacity of approximately 200 MGD. Three basic criteria are used to determine the rate of discharge through the outlet for lake elevation management:

Current rates of precipitation – along with short and long range weather forecasts
Historical records of lake levels, precipitation and dam discharges
Amount of water stored in snowpack

Provided that ideal weather and soil conditions exist, combined daily withdrawls from maximum dam discharges and flow through the City’s water intakes is limited to approximately one inch of lake elevation per day.

To condense seven decades of lake elevation data, the graph below displays lake levels in 10-year intervals (and current years) recorded on the first day of each month. Over this time period the lake has fluctuated over eight feet. The minimum, maximum and average monthly lake levels are presented as dashed lines.

The table below also shows lake elevation and precipitation both as an average and for the most recent year available across each month of that year.

Precipitation data for 2023 for each month and the 72-year rolling average, as well as the total (for 2023 and average). It also includes the lake elevation for the first of the month for each month in 2023, and the 72-year rolling average. — Table showing precipitation totals for each month and the total for the entire year in 2023. It also shows the 72-year rolling average of precipitation and the total rolling average. The last two columns show lake elevation for the first of the month - for each month in 2023, as well as the 72-year rolling average lake elevation.