St. George • Southern Utah’s winter keeps getting worse.
Four months into the water year, southwest Utah’s snowpack sits at just 37% of its 30-year average as of Thursday, according to National Resources Conservation Service data. That’s down from 56% of normal just last month.
Jordan Clayton, a hydrologist at the Utah Snow Survey, said the percentages only tell part of the story. More alarming, he said, are the percentiles.
Snowpack in the mountains of southwestern Utah and the Escalante-Paria Basin is critically low, ranking at the 5th and 16th percentile, respectively, according to the agency’s data.
“When we say something is about the 5th percentile,” he continued, “we are really saying that we have done better 95% of the time.”
Clayton said nine SNOTEL measuring sites in the mountains between Richfield in central Utah and the Arizona border are also flirting with record lows. That’s worrisome, he explained, since the water that melts from that snowpack accounts for 75% of the water needed by cities, farmers and to fill up reservoirs.
Topping the snowpack charts are high-elevation sites like Midway Valley in the mountains above Cedar City, where the snow water equivalent is 70% of average, placing it in the 32nd percentile. Conversely, he pointed out, the snow water equivalent in the Upper Sevier River Basin ranks in the second percentile, a paltry 41% of what it should be.
“That is nothing to brag about,” Clayton said.
Glen Merrill, hydrologist with the National Weather Service’s Salt Lake City office, said the current weather picture in southern Utah is an anomaly. He noted that precipitation across southern Utah’s river basins ranges from 118% to 138% of normal, compared to between 40% and 60% a year ago.
The U.S. Drought Monitor shows that much of the region is now in “moderate” drought, as opposed to being in “severe” drought last October. The reservoirs in the St. George metro area are at 72% of total capacity, according to the Washington County Water Conservancy District, which is roughly the same as a year ago,
The problem, Merrill explained, lies in the fact that the record-warm temperatures Utah experienced in November and December meant most of the precipitation that came through the region fell as rain, not snow.
Merrill said a good example of the area’s precipitation paradox is Gardner Peak. Situated at 8,300 feet in the Pine Valley Mountains north of St. George, the peak’s precipitation levels are 136% of normal, but its snowpack stands at 26%, an all-time record low.
Clayton said there is one silver lining, though. All that rain has left the soils soaked, with soil moisture across southwestern Utah range between 106% to 141% of average. High soil moisture levels means that less water will soak into the soil during the spring snowmelt, and more of that water will reach the streams and rivers that feed the reservoirs.
Both experts said the winter isn’t lost yet, either, as just five or six major snowstorms over the region could make up the deficit. Alas, Merrill lamented, the forecasts are showing the more active storms over the coming weeks will likely head further north.
“The signals for southern Utah show the highest probabilities are for below-normal precipitation and above-average temperatures the remainder of the winter,” he said.