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About
Know Your Lake Before You Go. LakeRadar collects official weather, wind, and water measurements for U.S. inland lakes and reservoirs in one place, verifies that every data point has an authoritative source, and turns it into an actionable 0–100 score across the activities people actually head to the water for.
For every lake in our catalog, LakeRadar prioritizes active National Weather Service severe alerts first, followed by live atmospheric conditions (temperature, wind speed, gust risk, cloud cover, and precipitation). It then calculates an algorithmic score from 0 to 100 for five distinct water activities: Fishing, Boating, Sailing, Paddling (Kayaking/SUP), and Swimming.
Where an active in-situ gauge exists, we display real-time water elevation relative to full pool, stage height, and water temperature. Where one does not, we display an honest “no data” indicator rather than guessing or fabricating numbers.
Explore the platform through our primary directories: browse all published lakes, explore our state guides, or search directly by lake name.
Every value displayed on LakeRadar comes from a public government service or an authoritative managing agency:
Review our full licensing and attribution registry in our Data Sources Registry. For the mathematical weights, safety caps, and freshness windows behind our scores, see our Methodology.
LakeRadar operates an automated ingestion engine that polls government APIs on a scheduled cadence, validates each observation against sanity bounds, converts units to U.S. customary standards, and saves the data with exact timestamps and source badges.
When you visit LakeRadar, your browser communicates exclusively with our edge-cached servers. Nothing you browse generates traffic to upstream government infrastructure. We load zero third-party tracking scripts, set no advertising cookies, self-host our fonts, and never harvest or track your device geolocation.
LakeRadar is an informational conditions decision aid, not a safety authority or a substitute for skipper judgment. Conditions on inland lakes can change rapidly due to localized thermal squalls, dam spillway operations, or submerged hazards.
When the National Weather Service issues an official advisory or warning, that alert is the authoritative voice and takes precedence over all scores. Please read our full Disclaimer & Safety Notice and our Terms of Service.
Curious about reservoir terminology like full pool, vertical datums, or solunar tables? Browse our Glossary and our answers to Frequently Asked Questions.
Notice a missing public lake? Visit our Request a Lake page. To report an updated boat ramp or suggest an authoritative agency feed, reach out through our contact page or email us at info@lakeradar.com.