A recent article in the Salt Lake Tribune mentions that the Great Salt Lake is expected to rise as much as 5.7 feet thanks to this spring's runoff, which would be a one-year record. It also suggests this may help the lake generate more lake effect snowstorms.
Conventional wisdom is that a bigger lake leads to more lake-effect, but this assumes that the "weather" doesn't change. In other words, that the frequency and characteristics of cool-season trough passages remains the same. In reality, there are huge fluctuations in the frequency and characteristics of cool-season trough passages fro year to year.
We will be unveiling some new research soon that shows that lake-effect is better correlated with the "weather" of a given winter rather than the lake size. I'm hoping we'll see more lake-effect next winter, but I won't be counting on it. If we have a ridge-dominated winter, a big lake makes little difference.
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