Well it has been a tough year at the Great Salt Lake Marina. Last year's dredging as well as a great 2016-2017 snowpack allowed us to get all the boats back in the water. And even after a disastrous 2017-2018 winter everyone that wanted to sail could sail all spring and into early summer. And those with drafts of 4.5 feet or less are still getting out with no problem.
We made several attempts at keeping the mouth open through the generous help of Dave Ghizzone. The strong winter/spring winds silt in the mouth during these lower water years. In order to maintain the mouth on a more regular basis we are looking at purchasing equipment so that silt in the mouth can be removed as needed by us. I will keep you updated on our efforts in this area.
As you all know, we had a horrible winter last year. The early winter was about 70% of average. December through February saw a snowpack of only 66% of normal snowpack. And the spring precipitation was at normal levels but the damage was already done. The summer has been VERY dry and consistently hot even though we didn't break 100 degrees at the lake or see a record high this year. These above average temperatures can speed up evaporation.
National Weather Service predicted a wetter-than-normal winter last winter. That didn't happen. They also predicted a wetter-than-normal summer for the Great Salt Lake area. That also didn't happen. In fact we only saw 12% of normal precipitation for Great Salt Lake this summer.
What is the forecast for this fall? National Weather Forecast thinks we are going to have a wetter-than-normal Fall. Their forecast also states that we have an equal chance of being wetter-than-normal or drier-than-normal this winter. But I do not have much faith in their long-term forecasts. Farmers Almanac states we should have a milder and wetter-than-normal fall and winter.
Expert forecasters are predicting the 2018-2019 fall/winter season will be largely effected by the development of an El Nino trend. NWS is predicting January through March will see the biggest effect of the El Nino. But how strong of an El Nino will we see. They don't know yet. What I do know is that 50% of the time there is an El Nino we have a wetter-than-normal season and 50% of the time we have a drier-than-normal season.
During at typical El Nino, snowfall is greater than average across the southern Rockies and drier in the northern Rockies. So what is Great Salt Lake considered to be? Central Rockies. That means we are in the zone where NWS doesn't know if we will be wetter-than-normal or drier-than-normal. Many current models shows the Great Salt Lake drainage area as going into a wet pattern by January and continuing through next spring.
SO HERE IS WHERE WE ARE AT. We are in desperate need of a wetter-than-normal winter. Without it we will probably be putting boats in the parking lot again next spring/summer. Boats with drafts of 5 feet or more are now grounding out in the mouth of the marina. It is mostly soft silt and the inboard boats have had enough horse power to blow through it. But the lake is still going down and could go down as much as 0.8' still. The lake usually stops dropping mid-October to mid-November. It is all dependent on temperature and moisture as to when we stop dropping. We will likely see lake levels similar to what we saw in 2016 or about 4192.2' msl. This is not good. This means many of the deeper draft boats will be stuck in their slips with potentially having keels in the mud this fall. Some boats drafting around 4' may also find themselves trapped in the slips and there will only be about 3.5 to 3.7 feet at the mouth of the marina.
We do have a Crane Day scheduled for September 13th for those that want to pull out now. If you are interested you need to email me at dshearer(a)gslmarina.com<mailto:dshearer@gslmarina.com> to get on the list.
We will likely see the lake start to rise again in late November. If we have a great winter than all is good. But if we have a below-average winter or even an average winter we are going to be faced with tough choices again next spring/summer as much of the runoff will be trapped to fill the reservoirs and ground water back up. I know this is not the news everyone wants to hear. But it is the reality we face.
There is definitely hope. 20 years ago long-term weather forecasters stated we were going into a 20 year dry cycle. I thought they were nuts. It appears they were correct. Now there are some models that show we should be going into a six year wet cycle. I thought we were beginning that in the 2016-2017 season. Let us hope it begins soon.
Dave
