As a sailor on the GSL, I have often wondered how much tidal affect there is on the lake, but I don't know if there is. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Canopus56" <canopus56@yahoo.com> To: "Utah Astronomy List Serv" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2006 09:52 AM Subject: [Utah-astronomy] Lunar observing - tides - Tides on Great SaltLake?

One astronomical phenomena I have been remiss in observing is Moon tidal forces. (I admit, I lived near an ocean for about 10 years and one of the Great Lakes for another 6.) Does the Great Salt Lake have tides that can be seen? If so, where is a good place?

- Canopus56

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I thought that was an excellent question, so I went looking for an answer. I found a good description of what tides really are, and how they work here: http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/scenario/tides.htm The relevant excerpt to your question is: "The reason water can rise as much as 1 meter in mid-ocean is primarily because the ocean is so large that water can move into the tidal bulge. The tidal rise in Lake Michigan is smaller because the lakes' area is much smaller. The tide in Lake Michigan would be about 2 inches [Sawicki]. Smaller still is the tide in your backyard swimming pool. It's unmeasurably small. Don't even bother with the tide in your bathtub or your morning cup of coffee. Oh, there's "stretching" tides in all of these, but the land, table and cup rise, and the coffee rises with it, by nearly the same amount, perhaps a fraction of a meter as the moon is high in the sky. But you don't notice anything unusual." I found the surface area of Lake Michigan to be 22,300 sq. miles. The (slightly more difficult to quantify) surface area of the Great Salt Lake, at the historic average (1847-1986) surface elevation of 4,200 feet, is about 1,700 square miles. At the historic low elevation of 4,191.35 in 1963, the lake covered only 950 square miles. So the long answer is that there are no discernible tides in the Great Salt Lake because it is just to small. Jo At 08:52 AM 4/25/2006 -0700, you wrote:

One astronomical phenomena I have been remiss in observing is Moon tidal forces. (I admit, I lived near an ocean for about 10 years and one of the Great Lakes for another 6.) Does the Great Salt Lake have tides that can be seen? If so, where is a good place?

- Canopus56