The Great Salt Lake water level in 2026 sits 1.1 feet from its record low
The Great Salt Lake water level measured 4,189.6 feet above sea level on September 28, 2026, the most recent full day of data from the United States Geological Survey gauge that tracks the lake around the clock. That reading sits only 1.1 feet above the 4,188.5 foot record low the lake set in November 2022, a MAOWCE calculation made by reading the agency own daily elevation record directly and comparing it with the Utah Division of Water Resources own record of that past low. A reading taken the next morning, September 29, 2026, was still provisional, meaning the government had not yet finished checking it, and put the lake at 4,189.7 feet, 1.2 feet from the record.
These are actual measured elevations, not modeled projections. Every chart on this site scales from 0, so the difference between months reads smaller here than it is in real terms. The record low the lake has ever measured is 4,188.5 feet, below every bar shown here.
Show the numbers
| Jan 2026 | 4191.5 |
| Apr 2026 | 4192.6 |
| Jul 2026 | 4191.0 |
| Sep 2026 | 4189.6 |
How the lake dropped 3 feet since its spring high point
The lake peaked for 2026 at 4,192.6 feet on April 2, 2026, right after that year winter snowmelt reached it, then fell 3 feet by September 28, a MAOWCE calculation from the same government data. Basin by basin snowpack readings, how much snow had piled up in the mountains and was still waiting to melt into rivers, already signaled the drop was coming around January 8, 2026. The Provo and Jordan river basins sat at 68% of normal snowpack and the Colorado and Sevier river basins sat just over 50%, while the Bear River watershed, which feeds a different arm of the lake, sat at 104%. The lake now sits 10.4 feet below its historic average water level of 4,200 feet, a MAOWCE calculation, after evaporation and water use outpaced the runoff those basins supplied.
What a shrinking Great Salt Lake means for the region
A shrinking Great Salt Lake carries consequences beyond the water itself. The lake and the industries built around it support an estimated 1.9 billion dollars in annual economic output and more than 7,700 jobs, according to the Utah Division of Water Resources, and mineral operations pull nearly 2 million tons of salts and other minerals from it every year. As the lake drops, more of its lakebed, the ground that used to sit underwater, is exposed to wind, and the people who study and advocate for the lake say the dust that lifts off it is the consequence that reaches residents directly.
It is terrifying, just how close we are to breaking the historic low.
Bonnie Baxter, biology professor and director of Westminster University Great Salt Lake Institute. Source 5.
That's really scary to people, they don't want Great Salt Lake dust in their lungs.
Samantha Hawkins, spokesperson for Grow the Flow, a Great Salt Lake conservation nonprofit. Source 4.
Each of these 3 past lows was measured in the fall, after a full season of evaporation, and 2026 had not yet reached that point in the year when this data was gathered.
Show the numbers
| Historic average | 4200 |
| Low 1963 | 4191.35 |
| Low 2021 | 4190.2 |
| Low 2022 | 4188.5 |
The lake record lows have all struck in fall, after the evaporation season ends
Every one of the Great Salt Lake 3 record lows, set in October 1963, October 2021 and November 2022, was set in the fall, after a full season of evaporation left no more snowmelt to offset it. The newest government data available as this article was prepared runs only through late September 2026, weeks before that point in the year. That means whether 2026 becomes a 4th record low is not yet decided by the data available now, not something that has already happened. The Great Salt Lake was once far larger than it is now, though 2 government pages describe that past high water extent with figures that differ by 1,000 square miles, so no exact number for it appears here.