Great Salt Lake High Water Mark
Posted by: 
Lord Mot
N 41° 02.193 W 112° 01.730
12T E 413520 N 4543324
Peak Water Level Elevation 4212 in the 1870s and 1980s
Waymark Code: WMB6RQ
Location: Utah, United States
Date Posted: 04/12/2011
Views: 21
In September 1982, the lake began rising rapidly again due to abnormal high rainfall and an abrupt ending of the evaporating season. The continued high precipitation caused inflows of 7.5 million acre-feet in 1983 and 9.0 million acre-feet in 1984. This caused the lake to peak at elevation 4204.70 feet in June 1983 and at elevation 4209.25 feet in June 1984. The two successive rises of the lake (approximately five feet each) were the two largest rises of the lake in historical record.
My Uncle was the director of The Division of Water Resources at the time and submitted a paper to the Interstate Conference on Water Problems (ICWP) at Big Sky, Montana, and the West Desert Pumping Project was developed and built to remove water from the lake through evaporation. The project would evaporate up to 800,000 acre-feet of additional water from the Great Salt Lake.
Water levels have been recorded since 1875, averaging about 4,200 feet (1,280 m) above sea level. Since the Great Salt Lake is a shallow lake with gently sloping shores around all edges except on the south side, small variations in the water level greatly affect the extent of the shoreline. The water level can rise dramatically in wet years and fall during dry years. The water level is also affected by the amount of water flow diverted for agricultural and urban uses. The Jordan and Weber rivers, in particular, are diverted for other uses. In the 1880s Grove Karl Gilbert predicted that the lake – then in the middle of many years of recession – would virtually disappear except for a small remnant between the islands.
Natural or man made event?: Natural
What type of marker?: Embedded marker
When did this occur?: 1870s and 1980s
Website related to the event..: [Web Link]
|
Visit Instructions:
A picture showing the level along with any markers telling of what had occurred can be used. Better yet would be a picture of you or someone standing next to the high level mark, that would show if you would have been just wading or completely submersed.