Driving Through the Great Salt Lake

That is the I-80 median on my left

Saltair Resort under water.
You can barely see the right-of-way fence posts.

Heading east towards Salt Lake City and the Oquirrh Mountains

Dirt mounds holding the lake back from the highway

Starting in the fall of 1982 record rains and snowfall (snowfall nearly twice normal) and spring melting caused the Great Salt Lake to begin it's historic rise. This abnormal rain and snow continued through the mid 1980's. I got to Utah in the late fall of 1983, a week later the snows started and I didn't see ground until April. We had 36" of snow on the ground Christmas day. Part of my work took me out to the west side of the Lake. In the Spring of 1984 the water levels in the Lake started to rise. It was all that the Highway Department could do to keep up with it. As you can see there was times the water still covered Interstate 80.