MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) --- If you frequent Madison's local lakes you may have noticed a change in the way it looks. One thing could affect how clear the lakes are.

If you're someone takes advantage of the lakes frequently, you might be wondering why it's looking a little murkier this week.

That's because of the rain we had over the weekend.

"It just flushes a lot of run off into the lake and that really affects clarity," Adam Sodersten, Clean Lakes Alliance director of marketing and development, says. "Prior to that, the lake has actually been pretty clear."

Sodersten says overall it's been clearer.

"We've had a good year," he says. "Compared to 2015, 2016 has been a great year for water clarity. I think people will be able to see even when they walk along the shore, you could see the bottom at a lot more points this year than you could last year.

Another thing you may have noticed this summer, not as many beach closures as last year.

"What's happening is it's running stuff off the land," he says. "It could be animal feces, it could be coming from any number of areas that's going into the lake and that's causing E. coli. What we've noticed is anything really a half inch or less is not causing that big push into the lake and we just haven't had those real large rain events a number of times. We've only had a few beach closures because of E. coli this year.

And just because you see that Esther Beach is closed, doesn't mean you can't be enjoying the water near Olin Park.

"There's a number of places where the water clarity is fair or good and which is really good, and even the places where it's murky, there's other places on the lake where it's not," Sodersten explains. "You know, lake users need to be aware that that stuff moves around a lot and there's always a great spot on the lake to enjoy the water."

If you are interested in helping in the effort to keep the lakes clear, you can take a bike ride around lake Monona for this weekend's Loop the Lake.