The lake level normally falls each year from summer into late fall before lower temperatures and moisture raise it again in the winter and spring. The lake level is entirely dependent on the weather.

The lake's historic peak came during the "flood years" of 1986 and 1987 at 4,212 feet. Its all-time low, 4,191.35, was in 1963. The historic average on which most maps are based is 4,200 feet.

Because it's such a shallow lake, even minor drops expose much more land area around the lake. For example, at 4,200 feet above sea level, the lake covers 1,700 miles. At its all-time 1963 low point, it only covered 950 square miles compared with its 1986-87 high point, when it expanded to 3,300 square miles.

John Sullivan, assistant park manager at Antelope Island, said the marina water level is down 2 feet this year from last year.

"We're almost in a drastic situation now," he said. The ends of the docks only have 2-foot-deep water levels now, and that won't handle some sailboats and certainly not large brine shrimp boats that arrive in October.

"The harbor also is filling with sediment," he said. That could mean more than $50,000 in dredging costs.

The Davis County causeway to the island is now high and dry, but low water is also having another impact.

"People have to walk a little farther to the beach," Sullivan said.

Still another effect may be lake odor. "Lake stink" has been reported at least twice in the past week in the Layton area.

"My feeling is it's from Farmington Bay," Gwynn said.

The open lake has no odor, but decaying materials around the lake shore can cause quite a stink, and the smell is blown eastward when the winds carry it.

E-MAIL: lynn@desnews.com