Powderhorn Lake

Powderhorn Lake earns an F: 155 µg/L of phosphorus and clarity at 1.3 ft signal heavy nutrient loading from the surrounding watershed. Sub-grades cluster within a single letter of each other, which usually means the lake is in stable trophic balance rather than fighting one specific stressor.

A TSI above 70 puts Powderhorn Lake in hypereutrophic territory: visible blooms are common, and clarity rarely climbs even in early summer. A maximum depth of 24 ft puts Powderhorn Lake in the middle of Minnesota's depth distribution. Powderhorn Lake is small — 11 acres alongside 0.6 miles of shoreline — which makes it sensitive to even modest changes in watershed runoff or recreational pressure. Powderhorn Lake sits at rank 70 of 95 in Hennepin County, in the lower half of the local distribution.

Powderhorn Lake carries an invasive watermilfoil record — boat-launch decontamination and shoreline care matter more here than at uninfested lakes. 6 fish species are on record, with panfish making up the recreational core. No formal public access is documented at Powderhorn Lake — most use is by shoreline residents and their guests. Ice-out has been logged at Powderhorn Lake more than two dozen times, putting the median around Apr 4 — a useful baseline for tracking climate trends. Monitoring depth is thin here: the LakeGrade rubric is applied to a small number of sample years, and the grade will be revised as more data accumulates.