Utah's Water Year: So Far, So Good

The series of storms that slammed Utah in December could mean lots of water in rivers, streams and reservoirs this summer - depending, of course, on the weather the rest of this winter.

The National Weather Service hydrologist Brian McInerney predicts healthy runoff from deep mountain snows - with the exception of the Bear River and Green River basins.

So far this water year, which began in October, precipitation has been up to 150 percent of normal over much of the state, most of that coming in last month's snowfall.

That means this year is shaping up to match last year, when nearly all of Utah's reservoirs got above-normal water. Yet this month's precipitation, or lack thereof, could signal drier times.

Record snowfall last January contributed most of last summer's water. But this month, skies are looking dry and dirty, McInerney said.

The short-term forecast shows a high-pressure ridge building up over the state, where it could sit for the rest of the month, making inversions virtually certain.

"I hope the models are wrong," McInerney said. "Right now, it looks dry, it looks stagnant, it looks kind of polluted for the valley areas, at least through the third week of January."

Climatologists can predict the future more easily during El Niños and La Niñas, conditions that depend on temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. But this year a "neutral" pattern has emerged, leaving forecasters only the weather on which to rest their analyses. That makes the forecasts good for just five to seven days, McInerney said.

Last winter, from mid-December through mid-February, snow kept piling up until it reached 140 percent of normal along the Wasatch Front. Below-normal temperatures kept the snowpack in place through a dry spring, with the thaw coming at just the right time for optimum runoff.

What will happen this spring is anybody's guess, McInerney said. "It's very early in the snow-collection, water-supply season," he said. "We have many different paths we might take."