The Great Salt Lake rang in 2026 in pretty rough shape.
The lake has struggled for years with overconsumption in its watershed, along with a warming climate that’s speeding evaporation. The water year started on Oct. 1, and much of Utah has hardly seen a skiff of snow in the months since. It’s been rainy, sure, but almost all of Utah’s water supply comes from snowpack that gradually melts in the spring and replenishes reservoirs. Snowmelt reaching tributary rivers is also what the Great Salt Lake needs to refill.
The Provo and Jordan river basins have snowpack that’s at 68% of normal, according to Natural Resources Conservation Service data collected Friday afternoon. The Weber River basin is at 71% of normal. The Bear River, the Great Salt Lake’s largest tributary, got a boost over the weekend. Its watershed is fairing better with snowpack at 104% of normal in its watershed, but combined it all paints a pretty dismal picture.
The lake’s southern end, where it’s the most ecologically productive, currently sits at 4,191.6 feet above sea level. That’s only three feet higher than its record low set less than four years ago. The hypersaline north arm is about a half a foot lower. And all the rainfall over the last few weeks barely registered as a blip.
It’s dangerously close to the low elevation the Great Salt Lake started at in 2022. By January of that year, its elevation hovered at 4190.4 feet and kept sinking to lower and lower record lows until it bottomed out at 4,188.5 feet that November.
This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aims to inform readers across the state. Read the full story at sltrib.com.