Stormy Lake

Stormy Lake sits at the top of the Wisconsin DNR grading rubric with an A, a mark reached by the cleanest lakes in Wisconsin. Clarity, phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a all rate similarly, so there is no obvious single lever to pull on watershed management.

A TSI value of 28 puts Stormy Lake in the oligotrophic range, where biological productivity stays low and the water column remains clear. At 63 ft of maximum depth, Stormy Lake stratifies reliably through the summer — the hypolimnion stays cooler and clearer than the surface layer suggests. At 523 acres, Stormy Lake fits the Wisconsin median for monitored lakes, with partial shoreline records. Stormy Lake sits at rank 138 of 202 in Vilas County, in the lower half of the local distribution.

An invasive species record — Chinese Mystery Snail — has been logged at Stormy Lake; Wisconsin DNR maintains the official infested-waters list. The fishery is bass-led, with 5 documented species across the lake's records. A documented public access point at Stormy Lake makes the lake usable for shore fishing, paddle craft, and trailered boats. 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.