Sturgeon Bay

Sturgeon Bay is an arm of Green Bay extending southeastward approximately 10 miles into the Door Peninsula at the city of Sturgeon Bay, located approximately halfway up the Door Peninsula.[1] The bay is connected to Lake Michigan by the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal.

Sturgeon Bay
Sturgeon Bay Sturgeon Bay
Location	Door County, Wisconsin
Coordinates	44°51′15″N 87°23′40″W
Type	Bay
Surface elevation	581 feet (177 m)
Settlements	Sturgeon Bay, Nasewaupee, Sevastopol, Idlewild

Looking southeast across Sturgeon Bay

Looking northeast at the mouth of Sturgeon Bay

Bridges

Three bridges cross the bay, including the historic Sturgeon Bay Bridge, and the recently finished Oregon Street Bridge.

Fish

Sturgeon Bay and Little Sturgeon (just to the south of Sturgeon Bay) are considered biodiversity hotspots because they support a large number of different fish species.[2]

Mayflies

In June 2016, an estimated several thousand mayflies hatched in Sawyer Bay (within Sturgeon Bay). This was the result of an experiment to stock millions of eggs from the species Hexagenia limbata and Hexagenia bilineata in the lower Green Bay area in an attempt to reintroduce the species. The last mayfly from the genus Hexagenia had been collected in the lower Green Bay area in 1955. As mayfly populations can be unstable and not all stocking locations appeared to be successful, as of 2017 it was not yet known whether it would be possible for populations of Hexagenia mayflies to become self-sustaining.[3]

Climate

Dunlap Reef (in the middle of the bay) Climate chart (explanation) J F M A M J J A S O N D     57     −6 −8     54     −8 −15     60     1 −4     129     9 −2     93     13 3     85     18 9     97     21 12     78     20 15     87     19 12     129     11 3     85     7 1     65     −2 −2 Average max. and min. temperatures in °C Precipitation totals in mm Source: [4] Imperial conversion J F M A M J J A S O N D     2.2     21 18     2.1     18 5     2.4     34 25     5.1     48 28     3.7     55 37     3.3     64 48     3.8     70 54     3.1     68 59     3.4     66 54     5.1     52 37     3.3     45 34     2.6     28 28 Average max. and min. temperatures in °F Precipitation totals in inches

Notes

1. "Sturgeon Bay (Wisconsin)". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey.
2. Hotspots and bright spots in functional and taxonomic fish diversity by Katya E. Kovalenko, Lucinda B. Johnson, Valerie J. Brady, Jan J. H. Ciborowski, Matthew J. Cooper, Joseph P. Gathman, Gary A. Lamberti, Ashley H. Moerke, Carl R. Ruetz III, and Donald G. Uzarski, Freshwater Science 38(3), July 2, 2019, pages 484 and 486 (pages 5 and 7 of the pdf)
3. Evaluation of lower Green Bay benthic fauna with emphasis on re-ecesis of Hexagenia mayfly nymphs by Jerry L. Kaster, Christopher M. Groff, J. Val Klump, Danielle L. Rupp, Suneil Iyer, Ashely Hansen, Samantha Barbour, and Louisa Hall, doi.org/10.1016/j.jglr.2018.06.006, Journal of Great Lakes Research (2018), p. 14
4. "NASA Earth Observations Data Set Index". NASA. Retrieved January 30, 2016.