A subscriber inquired that for most of their experiences Honey Lake was either a dry dust bowl or a small mud puddle. The lake can be a lot of things.

First of all, the lake is a remnant of the ancient Lake Lahontan, so is nearby Pyramid Lake. There is a difference between the two, as Honey is a playa lake—a shallow body of water that goes dry in times of drought. However, there is another factor in play, since a great amount of water that would normally  flow into the lake, is now diverted for irrigation, thereby never reaching the lake.

When there is a heavy wet winter, that causes flooding with excessive run off can fill up the dry lake bed. When the lake is full it covers some 60,000 acres. On the average it takes a successive three drought years for the lake to completely evaporate. When the lake is dry and with the downslope winds from the Diamond Mountain range creates a dust bowl. What is fascinating is the amount of sediment the winds remove, thereby allowing the lake to still retain in certain places a depth up to twenty feet, though on the average four to five feet, and shallower on the east side, when the lake is filled up with water.

Tim