What Is The USL Water Level
The Upper Saranac Lake water level is shown on many maps as 1572 feet above sea level. What does that mean at your shoreline? Our lake level is relatively stable thanks to the Bartlett Carry Dam, but the level does rise and fall. Because you may want to know the lake water level whether or not you are actually at the lake the USF has installed water height staff gauges at the north and south end of our lake. These were inexpensive, installed by The Lake Manger and will be manually read frequently. Records of the water level will be kept, reported and posted on the webpage.
The recordings are based on the height, in inches of the water flowing over the primary spillway of the dam, located on the south end of the lake. In addition, we are keeping weekly averages of the water level so we can compare current levels with historic lows, highs and the average. The USF began collecting this data in 2011. The highest recorded level of water was on May 1, 2011 with 19.6 inches of water flowing over the dam. The lowest level was on September 4, 2025 with only 2.04 inches of water over the dam. This shows the extreme total variable of water to be 16.84 inches on the lake, generally only plus or minus 7 inches from mid-summer average levels.