Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Why do we call most precipitation "moisture" in Utah? I've lived in 4 states and have never heard it called "moisture" when it's raining or snowing! So why here? Is it a technical weather term?
Thanks! Sarah S.
**********************************************************
Good Query. I think this one is a matter of preference really. Meteorologists around the country use different weather terms depending on what they have learned or just where they might have grown up. It does depend on who you are watching more frequently as well.
We commonly refer to any sort of precipitation as moisture sinc that is what it is! Sometimes we vary our weather terminology to I guess you could say to "spice things up" or just add variety to our forecasts. If we always said the same thing, you'd think we sounded like a broken record!
I am not certain this is just a Utah thing. I have worked now in three states and interchanging the terms is fairly common. However, when you do have a lot of snow going on or rain going on Live 5 Vipir, you'll hear us call it just that, snow or rain. Precipitation coming in for the next few days, maybe on a forecast map, is commonly referred to as either precipitation or moisture.
Answered by KSL Meteorologist Dina Freedman.
