By Janelle Poore
The Great Salt Lake has fallen to its lowest water level in 34 years, linking all but two islands to the mainland and potentially causing problems for Utah residents this summer.
Utah Geological Survey geologist Wallace Gwynn said lake visitors will have to walk a little farther to the water line as the water continues to recede.
Gwynn said he expects the lake to fall from its current level of 4,196 feet above sea level to 4,194 feet before too long. The lake, when filled to capacity, rarely has more than 35 feet of water. Today the water measures 26 feet.
Utah''s five years of extreme drought have consistently been the cause for the expanding shoreline and dwindling water level of the lake, said John Horel, a professor in the meteorology department at the University of Utah.
Residents and lake enthusiasts may feel the effects of the low water level in terms of hotter temperatures throughout Utah Valley.
Dan Zumpfe, a master''s student at the University of Utah, has focused the majority of his thesis around the correlation of the Lake''s water level and lake breeze fronts.
'There seems to be a correlation when the lake is at its highest to the number of lake breeze fronts, but it''s not a perfect correlation,' Zumpfe said.
Lake breeze fronts generally cool off the valley during the hotter afternoon temperatures, Zumpfe said. If there are fewer lake breezes, temperatures in general and especially in the afternoons will most likely be on the rise.
'The Farmington Bay area has been the biggest area of largest fluctuation of surface area,' Zumpfe said.
The lake''s record low level of 4,191 feet was in 1963 and the highest water level, recorded in 1987, was 4,211 feet. As the largest salt lake west of the Mississippi, the Great Salt Lake is the remnant of the prehistoric Lake Bonneville that covered Utah and parts of Nevada and Idaho.