Lake Ontario breaks the sample. The spreadsheet gives it a county point, a centroid, a neat row, but the water refuses the box. Great Lake. Last lake in the chain before the St. Lawrence takes the whole system toward the Atlantic. Seven hundred twelve miles of shoreline if the islands are counted. Average depth 283 feet. Maximum 802. Too deep to freeze most years. Cold enough for upwelling to make a south-shore swim change temperature in hours. Not lake-as-cabin. Lake as weather-maker, shipping edge, salmon engine, lighthouse warning, beach day cancelled by wind. The New York side can be less urban than the Canadian side and still not feel empty. Oswego freighters. Winter-wetsuit surfers chasing rough wind waves between Rochester and Watertown. Salmon River hatchery numbers feeding the fall run. Braddock Bay turning shoreline shape into a raptor funnel while the open-water centroid reports almost birdless silence. Then the hard shoreline facts: 2017 and 2019 flooding, Sodus Point resilience money, urban beach bacteria closures. The local worksheet shows how big water breaks normal data: nearest town thirty-two kilometers from the water-point, low POI count from a centroid floating offshore. Government geometry gets seasick. The lake keeps going.
curator · lake-level · as of Sep 3, 2026
The facts
- Surface area 18,845.9 km² usgs-3dhp · lake-level · as of Jun 2, 2026
- Nearest town Onteo Beach · 32.7 km osm-overpass · lake-level · as of Jun 2, 2026
- Bird species (within 25 mi) 233 ebird-api-v2 · lake-level · as of Jun 2, 2026
- Bird diversity index 0.72 ebird-api-v2 · lake-level · as of Jun 2, 2026
- Water clarity Clear sentinel-2-l2a · lake-level · as of Sep 3, 2026
- Night sky Some skyglow curator · lake-level · as of Sep 3, 2026
- Surroundings Near-metro — a city within easy reach curator · lake-level · as of Sep 3, 2026
- Water origin Natural lake with a regulated outlet curator · lake-level · as of Sep 3, 2026
In more detail
- Climate
- strongly four-season; cold winters (~28°F mean), warm summers (~70°F); ~36 in precip/yr curator · lake-level · as of Sep 3, 2026
- Public access
- Scoped to the New York shore only (per harvest instructions), not the whole binational lake. NYSDEC publishes a brochure listing roughly 16 public boat-launch sites along the NY shore across many counties. Nearest to this record's Cayuga County location is Fair Haven Beach State Park (Town of Sterling): 1,141 acres with 1,500 ft of sand beach (600 ft guarded swim area), a free year-round 2-way trailer boat launch, and a $9/vehicle day-use fee. Fees/permits: Fair Haven Beach State Park: $9/vehicle day-use fee (Empire Pass $80/yr accepted); the boat launch itself is free. Fee structure varies by facility across the wider NY shore.. Sources: dec.ny.gov (search-extraction 2026-07-12); parks.ny.gov (fetched 2026-07-12); en.wikipedia.org (search-extraction 2026-07-12). curated-web-harvest · lake-level · as of Jul 12, 2026
- Dogs and pets
- medium — 0 dog parks within 25 mi (OSM); state rule: In New York State Parks, pets must be on a leash no more than 6 feet long and under control at all times (max 2 pets per campsite/day-use area). Pets are not permitted on guarded swim beaches, playgrounds, buildings, golf courses, boardwalks, or pools/spray-grounds (service animals excepted). No statewide off-leash provision exists. (NYS Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation - camping/day-use rules page, fetched 2026-07-12); At Fair Haven Beach State Park, pets (max 2, 6-ft leash) are allowed in campsites and day-use areas but not on the guarded swim beach, playgrounds, or buildings - matching the standard statewide NYS Parks pet policy. (parks.ny.gov, fetched 2026-07-12) curated-web-harvest · lake-level · as of Jul 12, 2026
- Property tax
- 2.19% ACS effective-rate proxy (2024 ACS 5-year; Cayuga County anchor: $3,740 median real-estate taxes paid ÷ $171,000 median owner-occupied home value; New York proxy 1.55%, +0.63 percentage points). census-acs-2024-property-tax · county-level · as of Dec 31, 2024
Where it’s heading
Stable hand-rated for v0.1 · lake-level · as of Sep 3, 2026
No median home value is recorded for the lake's water tracts (large-lake gap, pp-p5w), so the rating rests on civic and shoreline indicators rather than a housing-price trajectory. Record high-water flooding in 2017 and 2019 (per the IJC) and recurring urban-beach bacteria closures — a 2025 Environment New York report found Rochester's Ontario Beach Park unsafe on 35 of 83 days tested — are offset by New York's REDI program directing roughly $41.5 million in Wayne County shoreline-resilience funding and by the NYSDEC Salmon River hatchery and the Port of Oswego sustaining an active fishery and commercial-shipping economy. These countervailing signals support a stable trajectory.