BAYFIELD, ONT. -- Lake Huron got close, but without a month of monsoons, the Great Lake likely won’t reach its all-time high level this year.

“We are currently above the monthly high. The last measurement I have is around six centimetres above the monthly high right at the moment.

But we are still below the long-term high level which occurred in October of 1986,” says Geoff Cade, water and planning manager with the Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority.

How close is it? Well, Lake Huron is currently sitting at 177.49 metres. The record is 177.50 set in October of 1986.

Lake Huron has set monthly high-level records since January, and likely will set August’s monthly record as well.

“Typically, it starts to peak in July, and then starts to go down. As of a couple of weeks ago, I thought it would go down quite a lot because we had such a dry spell, but the last couple of weeks we’ve had quite a bit of rain. So, I suspect that the monthly levels are going to be somewhat static,” says Cade.

Declining lake levels can’t come soon enough for shoreline property owners, who have lost a lot of real estate over the past year, as higher than normal lake levels, chew up beach and bluffs.

“Hopefully the levels start to go down soon, because we know that people are very concerned about water levels and the impacts it’s having on their properties,” says Cade.

What’s the future have in store for Huron’s lake levels? Well, Cade says everything points to a downward trend, but how quickly is anyone’s educated guess.

“What’s going to happen in 2021 or 2022? Unfortunately I can’t predict that. I think I can say with some level of certainty that it will go down, I just don’t know when,” he says.