ST. GEORGE — Utah’s snowmelt came fast and early this year, and it is unlikely to bring much relief to parched reservoirs across the state.
The amount of snow and rain that fell in March was 79% of normal statewide, further chipping away at the surplus of storms that boosted snowpacks late last year, according to the latest Utah Water Supply Outlook Report by the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
The water stored in Utah’s snow, called its snow-water equivalent, is also quickly declining due to unusually hot weather. The state reached a peak of 12 inches of snow-water equivalent on March 22, which is almost two weeks earlier than normal, according to NRCS scientists.
“While the melt rate slowed in the last few days of March due to storms,” Jordan Clayton, NRCS data collection officer, wrote in the report, “snowpack across the state has ripened across all elevations and at most of our SNOTEL sites, and Utah’s snowpack has responded quickly to warm temperatures since then.”
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Written by LEIA LARSEN, The Salt Lake Tribune.
This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aims to inform readers across the state.
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