Utah’s Great Salt Lake risked disappearing. Unprecedented weather is bringing it back

Olof Wood walks across reef-like structures called microbialites, exposed by receding waters at the Great Salt Lake, in September. Photograph: Rick Bowmer/AP

Only months ago, scientists reported the megadrought water levels in Utah’s Great Salt Lake were at a record low and the body of water risked disappearing after years of drought.

But following a historic winter snowfall and rapidly warming temperatures, the lake’s storyline has a bemusing twist: the body of water the size of Delaware is rising. A series of unprecedented weather patterns brought not only remnants of the west coast’s atmospheric rivers but widespread wet avalanches, which are quickly sending spring runoff to the lake and its tributaries.