Fun Facts and Information about Lake Havasu

Lake Havasu is the result of Parker Dam holding back the Colorado River. It is located on the Arizona-California border south of Interstate 40.From Davis Dam (Lake Mohave), the Colorado river flows south about 57 miles to an area commonly known as “the sandbar”. From there Lake Havasu proper begins, covering about 21,000 surface acres and extending twenty nine miles south to Parker Dam.

The maximum depth in the lower one-third of the lake is about seventy five feet. The average lake depth is about thirty feet deep. The river section that is upstream from the sandbar offers an average depth of about twelve feet with scour holes that drop to about fifty feet and sand or rock bars just under the surface.

Lake Havasu’s shoreline is quite irregular, ranging from mountainous bedrock to gravel and sand aggregates in the backs of coves. The gravel and sand comes from desert washes. Thank goodness, development is confined to state and city parks, marina and resort concessionaires and the Chemehuevi Indian reservation on the California side. The entire Arizona side from Parker Dam to Lake Havasu City is a Bureau of Land Management area with over one hundred campsites that are accessible by boat only.The vast majority of the water in the lake comes from the Colorado River.

The only tributary, Bill Williams River, enters the lake near Parker Dam. Flow of the Bill Williams is dictated by runoff from the Prescott, AZ area and release from Alamo Dam. Water exits Lake Havasu through the hydroelectric tubes in the dam or through either the Metropolitan Canal in California or the Central Arizona Canal.

The lake’s water quality could be described as moderately fertile with colors ranging from greenish clear in the main lake to brownish in the backs of coves and river backwaters. Visibility ranges from four feet in some coves and Mouth of Bill Williams River to twenty four feet in the main lake. The water is alkaline with pH ranging from 7.6 to 8.6. Both calcium and manganese carbonates account for higher hardness levels. A thermocline develops during the latter half of summer at depths from twenty to thirty five feet, so if you really want to cool off, that’s the place to go

Feel free to comment below with more fun facts and information if you like. We hope you come vacation with us at Lake Havasu.