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DUCK CREEK VILLAGE -- Tuesday will mark the halfway point in the snow season in Utah, and already this is shaping up to be the best water-supply year since 2005.
When we look at soil moisture statewide, it is as good or better than we've seen it for this time period since we started keeping records of soil moisture ten years ago. This is really setting us up for excellent runoff conditions come spring.
–Randy Julander
Nearly throughout the state, the snowpack is well above average. In fact, the only area with average snow pack is the Escalante River drainage.
"This is an outstanding end-of-January situation," said Randy Julander, a veteran snow survey expert for the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
Duck Creek Village, east of Cedar City, is this year's poster child for heavy snowpack. The snow all fell more than a month ago, in December. It set a local record for the most snow on the ground ever on Jan. 1.
Although it's been melting, it's still piled 12 feet high around Doug Stadtlander's hardware store. The water content is so high, they don't like it here because it's not so good for business.
"This is actually bad snow for snowmobiling," Stadtlander said. "It's very heavy, it's very thick. There's no fluff to it at all. From all my local customers who have been here a long time, they have never seen this kind of heavyweight snow."
Around most of the state, snowpack ranges from 130 to 180 percent of normal; in smaller areas it's substantially above 200 percent of average. The averages are based on three decades of measurements spanning the years 1971 to 2000.
Another factor running heavily in Utah's favor this year is the soil-moisture content. In many parts of the state, the ground soaked up tremendous amounts of water during early season rainstorms.
"When we look at soil moisture statewide, it is as good or better than we've seen it for this time period since we started keeping records of soil moisture 10 years ago," Julander said. "This is really setting us up for excellent runoff conditions come spring."
Of course, a lot can change in the next couple of months. Duck Creek Village went from an extraordinarily snowy December to a bone-dry weather pattern in January. Without additional snow, the "percent of average" for the area will steadily decline in coming weeks. But Julander isn't too worried.
"They got so much snow over such a sort period of time that it will still be another month or more before they get down to average conditions," Julander said. "We're very hopeful that they'll at least be average and maybe even a little bit above" at the time of spring runoff.
Stadtlander doesn't think Duck Creek Village is finished with snowstorms this winter.
"Oh, no," he said. "Every year at the end of February, beginning of March, we get plenty of snow. So hopefully it's just a lot colder and nicer and more friendly" to snowmobilers.
E-mail: hollenhorst@ksl.com
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