This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2005, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The 2005-'06 water year begins today, but there are few clues yet as to how much precipitation it will contain.
Forecasters had indications last year that a wetter water year might be forthcoming because of the presence of a weak El Ni o system in the Central Pacific. Sure enough, Utah and the Wasatch Front were drenched with enough rain and snow to refill most of the state's major reservoirs and bring at least a temporary halt to what had been a nearly six-year drought.
No such indicators exist this time around; no El Ni os are lurking out in the Pacific. So, says hydrologist Brian McInerney, forecasting the next 12 months will be much more of a guessing game.
"All the indicators are neutral right now, so our ability to forecast long-range is weak," McInerney said Thursday. "But there are ways to look at it. If we look at this from a cyclical standpoint, we may be in a wetter pattern."
If nothing else, he added, the 2004-'05 water year broke the drought's stranglehold. Southern, western and northeastern Utah received record, or near-record rain and snowfall, while the rest of the state was at least slightly above average. That precipitation refilled virtually every major reservoir, save Lake Powell and Bear Lake, and actually led to spring flooding around the state.
Given the recent historical record, McInerney is at least hopeful that the wetter pattern will continue.
"In the early- and mid-1980s we were wet, in the late '80s and early '90s we were dry, the mid-'90s were wetter, then from the late '90s to 2004 we were very dry," he said. "So if you look at this as a pattern, maybe - just maybe - we're headed for a cooler, wetter winter."
McInerney says another way to at least guess about the upcoming water year is by looking at the previous summer. The summers between 2000 and 2003 were all very hot and dry, he noted. But the summer of 2004 was notable for a return to normal (even cooler than normal) temperatures and normal precipitation. This past summer, with some exceptions, offered up more of the same.
"June was much cooler and wetter than normal," McInerney said. "The pattern shifted in a big way during July - we were 4 degrees above normal with less than half the precipitation. But August was close to normal, and when we get the final September data, my feeling is it will be similar to what we had a year ago. So again, that could mean a wetter year with more runoff. But again, that's only if you're looking at trends."