(terminal lake — no dam) · Jordan, Weber and Bear Rivers · UT
Great Salt Lake
The terminal lake every Wasatch diversion shortchanges — its elevation is the honest ledger of what the basin did not send downstream. It set its record low in 2022 and hovers near it.
Water surface elevation
4,189.9 ft
USGS gage, 15-minute · Sep 2, 5:45 AM MDT
Water in storage
no reading
daily record
Share of capacity
no storage figure
storage ÷ capacity; ships only where both halves are verified
This month in the record
lower than 97% of the 36 Septembers on record
monthly mean elevation; record low 4,189.1 ft (2022), record high 4,202.7 ft (1999)
30-day trend
-0.02 ft/day
elevation, 2026-07-31 → 2026-08-30; over the year 0.00 ft/day. Measured change, not a forecast.
Drought at the dam
D3 — Extreme drought
US Drought Monitor at the dam's coordinates, released 2026-08-27; the feeding basin can differ.
Snowpack in the feeding basin
Measured across the Wasatch and Uinta snows that feed the lake's tributaries.
Snow season
typically Oct 26 – Jun 14
0.2 in on the ground, 2026-09-01; median peak 26.1 in around Apr 27
Last winter's verdict
69% of median peak
water year 2026 — the snow that fed this year's pool
5 highest active SNOTEL stations in the basin (Wheeler Peak, Trial Lake, Wolf Creek Peak, …), NRCS AWDB REST (SNOTEL), station set pinned 2026-08-31. Daily snow-water equivalent against the stations' own 30-year medians; off season the percent is withheld rather than divided by zero.
The last 118 days
Daily water-surface elevation in feet. The axis hugs the data — it does not start at zero. Source: USGS NWIS daily values.
See the numbers as a table
| Date | Elevation (ft) |
|---|---|
| Aug 31 | 4190.10 |
| Aug 30 | 4190.10 |
| Aug 29 | 4190.10 |
| Aug 28 | 4190.20 |
| Aug 27 | 4190.10 |
| Aug 26 | 4190.20 |
| Aug 25 | 4190.20 |
| Aug 24 | 4190.10 |
| Aug 23 | 4190.20 |
| Aug 22 | 4190.20 |
| Aug 21 | 4190.20 |
| Aug 20 | 4190.30 |
| Aug 19 | 4190.30 |
| Aug 18 | 4190.30 |
| Aug 17 | 4190.30 |
| Aug 16 | 4190.30 |
| Aug 15 | 4190.30 |
| Aug 14 | 4190.30 |
| Aug 13 | 4190.40 |
| Aug 12 | 4190.30 |
| Aug 11 | 4190.40 |
| Aug 10 | 4190.40 |
| Aug 9 | 4190.40 |
| Aug 8 | 4190.40 |
| Aug 7 | 4190.50 |
| Aug 6 | 4190.50 |
| Aug 5 | 4190.50 |
| Aug 4 | 4190.60 |
| Aug 3 | 4190.70 |
| Aug 2 | 4190.60 |
Most recent 30 days shown.
The whole record
Monthly mean elevation, Oct 1989 to Aug 2026. The axis spans the pools, not zero; elevations in NGVD29 (USGS gage datum). Months with fewer than 15 gaged days are dropped, and gaps in the record break the line. Source: USGS NWIS, retrieved 2026-08-31.
See the numbers as a table
| Month | Mean elevation (ft) | Days gaged |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 2026 | 4190.3 | 30 |
| Jul 2026 | 4190.9 | 30 |
| Jun 2026 | 4191.6 | 30 |
| May 2026 | 4192.0 | 31 |
| Apr 2026 | 4192.3 | 30 |
| Mar 2026 | 4192.2 | 31 |
| Feb 2026 | 4191.9 | 28 |
| Jan 2026 | 4191.7 | 31 |
| Dec 2025 | 4191.4 | 31 |
| Nov 2025 | 4191.2 | 30 |
| Oct 2025 | 4191.2 | 31 |
| Sep 2025 | 4191.2 | 30 |
| Aug 2025 | 4191.7 | 31 |
| Jul 2025 | 4192.4 | 31 |
| Jun 2025 | 4193.0 | 30 |
| May 2025 | 4193.4 | 31 |
| Apr 2025 | 4193.5 | 30 |
| Mar 2025 | 4193.3 | 31 |
| Feb 2025 | 4192.9 | 28 |
| Jan 2025 | 4192.6 | 31 |
| Dec 2024 | 4192.3 | 31 |
| Nov 2024 | 4192.2 | 30 |
| Oct 2024 | 4192.3 | 31 |
| Sep 2024 | 4192.7 | 30 |
Most recent 24 months shown; the full monthly series is in the page's API response.
Where these numbers come from
Readings at Great Salt Lake are the measuring agencies' own: each value above names its source (USGS gage, Bureau of Reclamation daily record, Army Corps project data, or this desk's committed copy) and its observation time in the reservoir's own time zone. No capacity figure ships for this reservoir until one is verified on the same basis as its storage series — so this page shows measurements, not a percent.