Record heat, dismal snowpack paint lackluster water year

Record heat, dismal snowpack paint lackluster water year

(Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)


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SALT LAKE CITY — The blustery storm that hit the Wasatch Front on Monday needs to stick around for two weeks for water managers to feel more comfortable, but the weather is likely to disappoint again.

Forecasters say it will dry out by midweek, with temperatures once again hovering around 70 under sunny skies.

A wet, stormy weather pattern couldn't happen too soon for Tage Flint, general manager of the Weber Basin Water Conservancy District, with reservoirs on that system down about 12 percent from last year.

"Our hope would be that we start climbing out of this drought cycle," Flint said. "History would say we have an equal chance."

Echo Reservoir, which is a one-year storage reservoir, has dwindled to just 19 percent of capacity. Pineview is barely half full.

"We are hoping for at least a normal snowpack this winter," Flint said. "We have so rarely had that in the last eight years. It would be nice to have one finally."

While Utah finished out the water year that ended Sept. 30 with an average snowpack, the runoff came early, ushered in by a generally dry spring.

The state is in its fifth year of drought and is coming off a record-setting summer for heat.

Brian McInerney, hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Salt Lake City, said it was the warmest June recorded at the Salt Lake City International Airport since 1874 and the fourth-warmest July since that time.

In all, there were 17 records set by the searing temperatures, including the warmest nighttime temperature ever recorded, as summer nights just didn't cool off. Additionally, Salt Lake City set a record over the summer with 21 consecutive days of temperatures 95 degrees or higher.

"It was a hot and dry June and July," he said.

Both McInerney and Randy Julander, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service, said reservoirs across the state are low — some such as Piute are empty or near empty — but in general, it could be worse.

USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (Photo: Aaron Thorup, USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service)
USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (Photo: Aaron Thorup, USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service)

"Due to restrictions on farmers and farmers conserving, we are worse than last year but not terrible," McInerney said.

Utah farmers are trying to adjust to the challenge of drought conditions by planting crops that use less water or crops that depend on water earlier in the season, before reservoir levels dwindle, said Sterling Brown, the Utah Farm Bureau's vice president over public policy.

"The stars never completely align in agriculture," Brown said, but farmers are making adjustments.

"Farmers today are turning on their irrigation systems with their iPhone," he said, "and they are not only turning on those systems, but the systems are kicking out different amounts of water depending on the soil type and the topography."

Science and research, too, have produced crops that consume less water, Brown added.

"It is in their very DNA," he said.

Water levels are well below the boat ramp at Echo Reservoir near Coalville on Monday, Oct. 24, 2016. (Photo: Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)
Water levels are well below the boat ramp at Echo Reservoir near Coalville on Monday, Oct. 24, 2016. (Photo: Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)

Still, the past few years in Utah have proved tough for farmers.

Ron Gibson, president of the Utah Farm Bureau and a Weber County rancher and farmer, said his place baked under the summer heat.

"We had no measurable rain on our farm from June 14 all the way to the end of September," he said. "We had an abnormally hot and dry summer that was hard on crops. We used a lot of storage water, and we are so grateful we had the storage water."

Gibson, like Flint, is hoping for a banner water year with plenty of snow in the mountains.

"So much of our destiny relies on Mother Nature," he said. "It is crazy to have to put your faith in that, but there is nothing else we can do."

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