The clearest lake of 100 acres or more in Michigan, by Michigan EGLE’s satellite estimates, is an unnamed 158-acre lake in Monroe County, at about 29.4 ft averaged over six summers. The clearest named lakes are Crystal Lake in Benzie County (24.5 ft), Glen Lake in Leelanau County (24.0 ft) and Torch Lake in Antrim County and Higgins Lake in Roscommon County (22.5 ft each).
The figure is Secchi depth: how far down a white disk stays visible. Each lake’s number here is the average of its July-to-September estimates for 2018 through 2023, and the list covers the 1,096 lakes of 100 acres or more with an estimate in all six summers.
Michigan EGLE, Michigan Inland Lakes Water Clarity (2018–2023), satellite Secchi depth estimates by the University of Minnesota. Fetched 26 Oct 2026.
The 25 clearest, in order. “Six summers” is the average; “Range” runs from the lake’s murkiest summer to its clearest; “2023” is the latest summer alone, which is the figure our lake pages print. Two of the 25 have no name in the state’s lake layer or in the USGS place-name record, so they are listed by position. The state layer cuts names at 22 characters; Ludington Storage Rese… is printed as the state writes it. Of the 25, 13 have a lake page on this site, linked by name.
| Lake | Six summers | Range, ft | 2023, ft | Acres |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unnamed lake (41.901° N, 83.403° W) Monroe County | 29.4 ft | 22.0–33.2 | 22.0 | 158 |
| Crystal Lake Benzie County | 24.5 ft | 23.6–26.3 | 23.6 | 9,876 |
| Glen Lake Leelanau County | 24.0 ft | 22.2–26.5 | 25.2 | 4,875 |
| Torch Lake Antrim County | 22.5 ft | 21.1–24.0 | 23.7 | 18,736 |
| Higgins Lake Roscommon County | 22.5 ft | 21.2–23.7 | 21.7 | 10,193 |
| Bear Lake Kalkaska County | 22.2 ft | 19.7–24.1 | 22.8 | 313 |
| Clear Lake Montmorency County | 22.1 ft | 21.0–24.0 | 22.1 | 138 |
| Plymouth Mine Pond Gogebic County | 21.7 ft | 20.0–23.4 | 23.4 | 137 |
| Avalon Lake Montmorency County | 21.0 ft | 19.2–22.7 | 20.5 | 386 |
| Twin Lake Kalkaska County | 20.9 ft | 19.1–22.5 | 22.1 | 209 |
| McNearney Lake Chippewa County | 19.8 ft | 17.9–21.2 | 17.9 | 123 |
| Blue Lake Kalkaska County | 19.6 ft | 16.7–23.0 | 23.0 | 108 |
| Unnamed lake (45.057° N, 83.626° W) Alpena County | 19.4 ft | 17.6–20.4 | 20.4 | 169 |
| Shupac Lake Crawford County | 19.0 ft | 18.3–20.1 | 18.3 | 105 |
| Clear Lake Schoolcraft County | 18.8 ft | 18.0–19.9 | 19.9 | 109 |
| Long Lake Grand Traverse County | 18.4 ft | 17.5–19.0 | 18.4 | 2,913 |
| Smoky Lake Iron County | 18.0 ft | 16.5–19.6 | 19.6 | 596 |
| Loon Lake Gogebic County | 17.9 ft | 16.5–19.2 | 18.6 | 366 |
| Silver Lake Kent County | 17.9 ft | 16.7–18.9 | 16.7 | 188 |
| Big Bradford Lake Otsego County | 17.7 ft | 16.6–18.8 | 16.6 | 256 |
| Little Bear Lake Otsego County | 17.6 ft | 17.1–18.2 | 17.1 | 110 |
| Silver Lake Grand Traverse County | 17.6 ft | 16.6–18.4 | 17.7 | 610 |
| Oxford Lake Oakland County | 17.6 ft | 17.1–18.4 | 18.4 | 114 |
| Ludington Storage Rese… Mason County | 17.6 ft | 12.5–23.4 | 23.4 | 792 |
| Little Shag Lake Marquette County | 17.4 ft | 15.9–18.8 | 17.2 | 107 |
Michigan EGLE satellite clarity estimates, July–September averages 2018–2023, converted from metres; names from Michigan DNR lake polygons and USGS GNIS. Fetched 26 Oct 2026.
Across the 4,995 Michigan lakes of 10 acres or more with an estimate in all six summers, the middle value is about 9 ft. Of the 1,096 lakes of 100 acres or more, 10 average 20 ft or more and 55 average 15 ft or more; the 25th lake on the list averages 17.4 ft.
Of the 100 clearest lakes of 100 acres or more, 9 are in Van Buren County, more than in any other; next come Iron (7), Marquette (7) and Grand Traverse (5). The 100 are spread across 42 of Michigan’s 83 counties.
Michigan EGLE, Michigan Inland Lakes Water Clarity (2018–2023), satellite Secchi depth estimates by the University of Minnesota. Fetched 26 Oct 2026.
A satellite estimate moves from one summer to the next. For the middle lake of 100 acres or more, its clearest summer and its murkiest are 2.1 ft apart. Ranked on the 2023 summer alone, eight of the ten lakes at the top of this list would still be in the top ten. Of the 25 here, the unnamed Monroe County lake moves most: from 22.0 ft in its murkiest summer to 33.2 ft in its clearest.
That is why the ranking uses all six summers, and why the range sits beside each average.
Michigan EGLE, Michigan Inland Lakes Water Clarity (2018–2023), satellite Secchi depth estimates by the University of Minnesota. Fetched 26 Oct 2026.
Lakes under 100 acres are left out of the ranking. The estimates are made from 20-metre satellite pixels, about 10 to the acre: a 20-acre lake is read from about 202 pixels, a 1,000-acre lake from about 10,117. The 100-acre line is our choice, not EGLE’s.
51 smaller lakes average clearer than the 25th lake on the list. The clearest named ones are Bay Harbor (69 acres, Emmet County, 24.1 ft), North Twin Lake (19 acres, Grand Traverse County, 21.1 ft), Silver Lake (68 acres, Cheboygan County, 20.8 ft), Starvation Lake (99 acres, Kalkaska County, 20.4 ft) and Cool Lake (79 acres, Lake County, 20.1 ft).
Michigan EGLE, Michigan Inland Lakes Water Clarity (2018–2023), satellite Secchi depth estimates by the University of Minnesota. Fetched 26 Oct 2026.
A Secchi disk is a white disk 20 centimetres across, lowered into the water until it disappears; that depth is the Secchi depth. The figures here were not read from a disk. The University of Minnesota estimated them from Sentinel-2 satellite images for Michigan EGLE, with models trained on field measurements from Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, and EGLE publishes the results for inland lakes larger than 10 acres. EGLE documents the 2023 figure as the average of estimates from July to September; the 2018 to 2022 figures have no description of their own.
EGLE’s layer holds 6,524 lakes; 757 have no estimate in any year, and 4,995 have one in all six. A summer average is not today’s water, and clear water is not a test for bacteria or algae toxins. How we read every kind of figure is on How we measure.
Michigan EGLE, item description of the Michigan Inland Lakes Water Clarity dataset (Olmanson and Kiesling, 2025). Read 26 Oct 2026.