Lake Superior's Best Waves Arrive After the Buoys Come Out

On the Monday after the last blizzard of 2025, people walked out onto the cliffs at Presque Isle to watch the lake hit Black Rocks. Some came on snowshoes. A father and daughter had driven more than five hours from Torch Lake the night before. The storm had dropped over two feet of heavy, wet snow, and northerly winds reached 60 miles per hour. Those winds pushed huge waves south across Lake Superior and onto the Upper Peninsula shore.

Before the storm, the National Weather Service forecast a steady run of waves around 15 feet, with some possibly topping 30 feet. The lake's recorded high is close to 28.8 feet, so the waves that day may have challenged it. Nobody can say. Forecasters told My UP News that their data buoys are taken out in winter, so there is no official record of how big the blizzard's waves got.

If you live on Lakewood Lane or anywhere on the north side, this is the lake's main event for the year. It's also the stretch of the year when the instruments are gone, and what's left for tracking it is a short list of tools, a forecast, and what you see from shore.

The surf calendar starts when the beach calendar ends

The City of Marquette's lifeguarded beach season ran from May 23 through Labor Day this year. Its beach flags fly at South Beach, McCarty's Cove, North McCarty's Cove, Middle Beach at Presque Isle and Picnic Rocks, and the City says the flag system is advisory only.

The surfing season starts about a month after that. Down Wind Sports' surf guide puts the best surfing in October through March, when more volatile weather brings the low-pressure systems that build waves on Lake Superior. The guide says surf is most frequent and cleanest from January through March, as long as the lake isn't frozen. Summer and early fall surf is less frequent and "tends on the sloppy side."

The guide also explains why lake surf looks different from ocean surf. Surfable waves usually run 6 to 8 feet and can reach 10 to 12. The wave period is much shorter than on the ocean, and the waves usually come with a lot of wind. It says 30-foot waves on Superior "are not unheard of," and puts those in the "Too Big" category.

So the best months for waves on this shoreline are the ones with no lifeguards, no flags and, as the next sections show, very little measurement.

Where the wetsuits go, and why Middle Bay draws them

If you've driven into Presque Isle on a stormy fall day and seen people in wetsuits walking the shore, you were probably at the spot Down Wind Sports calls "by far the most popular surfing spot in Marquette." Locals call it The Zoo, after a zoo that once stood on Presque Isle. The guide's directions are to turn left after entering the park, drive to Middle Bay and park at the Lake Superior Watershed house. From there, surfers ride the rocky shore out to about 100 feet, then walk back along the shore to get into position again. The guide calls it the cleanest break around Marquette.

The same guide lists two other Marquette-area breaks:

• McCarty's Cove: along Lakeshore Boulevard from the red lighthouse to Picnic Rocks, with the cleaner lines running next to the rocks in front of the lifeguard station. The guide warns that strong rip currents between Picnic Rocks and shore "have taken many lives over the years."
• Gitchi Gumi: a sandbar break on M-28 just east of Harvey, reached from the MDOT scenic turnout across from the Gitchi Gumi RV Park. It works with north and northeast winds, and sometimes west.

An October 2025 UP Travel surfing guide also names The Zoo as one of the most popular and cleanest breaks in the U.P. It adds Little Presque Isle Beach, Big Bay, Hot Pond Beach and Shiras Park to the regional list. For north-side residents, that puts The Zoo at the park entrance and Little Presque up County Road 550, with Big Bay farther along the same road.

The wind is what links all of these. Northerly storms, like the one in December 2025, have a long stretch of open lake to build waves over before they reach Marquette.

What is still watching the lake once winter arrives

This is where the season gets hard to track. Great Lakes buoy teams usually put buoys out in spring and bring them in during fall, according to the Great Lakes Observing System. NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory explains that boats and buoys come out when winter arrives so the ice doesn't damage them.

The closest wave buoy to the north side belongs to the Superior Watershed Partnership. In 2014, Northern Michigan University, LimnoTech and the Superior Watershed Partnership got Great Lakes Observing System funding to deploy coastal buoys at Marquette, Munising and Grand Marais. Before that, the 185-mile stretch of shore from the Huron Islands to Whitefish Point had no modern offshore equipment collecting wave height and water temperature. Newer Spotter V2 buoys replaced the originals in 2021. In 2025, the three buoys went back in the water in June.

On October 10, 2026, the Marquette buoy showed water at 56.5°F, wind of 17.1 knots from the south-southeast and waves of about 2 feet. A south-southeast wind blows off the land toward the lake. That reading is a long way from the 60-mile-per-hour northerly behind last December's waves.

Here's what each tool covers:

Granite Island is also where the lake's record came from. On Tuesday, October 24, 2017, the Granite Island buoy recorded a 28.8-foot wave. The Duluth Seaway Port Authority's magazine called it the highest Lake Superior wave measured with modern technology. The National Weather Service Marquette office's storm summary credits the wave graph to the Great Lakes Observing System and Dr. John Lenters. That storm came in late October, while the equipment was still out. The December 2025 storm came after it had been removed.

Reading the lake from Lakewood Lane

With fewer instruments, the north side has to rely on simpler methods. Here's a practical order for checking before a storm walk:

1. Start with the National Weather Service Marquette forecast. The City's beach page links to it, along with Michigan BeachGuard. Before last December's blizzard, the 15-foot forecast is what told people a big day was coming.
2. Check the wind direction. Down Wind Sports describes surf building on north and northeast winds. A reading like this weekend's south-southeast wind blows off the land.
3. Look at the Superior Watershed Partnership page while the Marquette buoy is still in. The same page carries the Stannard Rock station and a link to the GLOS Seagull map for the wider lake.
4. Look at Middle Bay before you go. The Superior Watershed Partnership lists a live Presque Isle Middle Bay webcam on its buoys and webcams page, which points right at The Zoo.
5. Watch from shore, from a safe distance. Travel Marquette says to stay out of the water and off breakwalls in strong winds and big waves, and warns about rip currents at Picnic Rocks. UP Travel's surf guide suggests dressing warmly, bringing a telephoto lens and using the outlooks on Presque Isle's east side.

The fifth point matters most at Black Rocks. My UP News describes the 15-plus-foot cliffs as a popular summer cliff-jumping spot. In a winter storm, that same rock takes the full force of the waves. The Torch Lake father, who has jumped there safely in summer, told the station he was in awe watching it get pounded.

Getting out to the rocks once the loop closes

Access changes in the coming weeks. Through November 30, the City keeps Presque Isle's seasonal loop open to pedestrians only on a posted schedule. In October and November it closes to vehicles at dusk, and snow can end that schedule early. Once snow starts to build up, the loop closes to vehicles for the winter. The south portion of Peter White Drive stays plowed and open during winter park hours, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. Last year, the Mining Journal reported the loop closure on November 18, 2025, after snowfall.

The City's winter rules don't say whether a given spot, like the Middle Bay parking area or Black Rocks, sits on the plowed section. Check the posted signs and the City's park page when you arrive. On the day of the December 2025 storm, people reached the cliffs on snowshoes.

A lifelong Marquette resident who went out that Monday told My UP News he had never seen the lake like that before. With no buoy in the water, accounts like that one are the main record of how big that day got.

If storm season has you thinking about which north-side windows look out on Middle Bay, or which streets are an easy walk to Presque Isle once the loop closes, Team Erin Wasik is happy to talk it through. We follow this shoreline closely and enjoy helping people find their spot along it.