Not Much Recovery for the Great Salt Lake

Although it was a decent snow year in northern Utah, the reality is that the Great Salt Lake didn't recover much this year.

USGS lake elevation data at Salt Air shows the annual cycle of lake elevation, which tends to be highest in the spring and lowest in the fall.  There was a net decline in lake elevation from 2011 to 2015 and a very modest recovery in 2017.  Currently, we're running a bit less than 1 foot higher than August 2018.

Below are modis images from the NASA Terra satellite from late August 2011 through 2019 (date in the lower left hand corner).  Consistent with the elevation data above, you can see a decline in lake coverage after August 2011 and then the recent spate of relatively low lake coverage years.

I would like to see a run of big snow years not just for my skiing interests, but also to see how much the recovers.  If we had the 1980s precipitation again, would we see the same increase in lake volume (i.e., increase in height and area) as was observed then given our warmer climate and greater thirst for water? 

Notes on comments:

A blog reader wrote me a note earlier this week letting me know that they were unable to post a comment to the blog.  If you are having problems, please send me an e-mail (jim.steenburgh at gmail.com) so I can see how extensive the problem is.  I am hoping it is an isolated case.

For the record, I do not screen comments, other than running the automated blogger spam filter and deleting spam that slips through the net.  I don't think I've ever had to do this before, but I would also delete posts that I consider inappropriate.  I am grateful that comments in the 8 or so years since I've started this blog have been respectful and polite, especially given the decline in civility that has occurred elsewhere in the social media world.

Update on comment issues: Searching through blogger support, I found recommendations that commenters who are having this problem should make sure cookies are not blocked, try clearing their browser's cache and cookies, or if they are running chrome, try it in incognito mode.  Sadly, there is no easy solution but perhaps one of these will work.