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Marc Giauque ReportingA lot of the snow you can see in the mountains along the Wasatch Front will eventually end up in the Great Salt Lake. It's the second year in a row experts predict the lake will rise.
Bryant Pratt is among those who check the lake levels on a regular basis.
"Every time I come out here, which is two or three times a week."
Pratt has been sailing here for years, even those years when it was tough to get the boats out of the harbor.
"Right now we're able to get boats that draw up to seven feet out of the marina, so it's been a tremendous improvement."
The lake right now is just under 4,198 feet in elevation, and as you might imagine, it's expected to go higher.
"We've come up with a forecast for the Great Salt Lake that indicates it will most probably increase by about half a foot this year."
Brian McInerney of the National Weather Service says that may not seem like a lot, but...
"It's kind of a big pan, so a half a foot elevation rise in the lake will cover a lot of ground."
And according to charts from the Utah Geological survey, it will take a lot of water, somewhere around 500-million acre feet. Does that mean it will reach those pumps put on the lake's west side two decades ago?
"We're nowhere near there."
In fact, McInerney says the lake would have to rise around nine-feet before the pumps were even considered. But one thing that will change, you will soon not be able to see features like that spiral jetty on the lake's north-central shore.
"I did some kind of predictions here and I figure that the spiral jetty will probably around 4,198; it should just about be covered."
Wally Gwynn of the Utah Geological survey says you may also see some of the lake's traditional shoreline return, and that Antelope Island will likely become an island again.
