“I’m ready to call this winter an all-time. We’ve had an incredible amount of snow. It’s been statewide. It’s been almost nonstop for the whole winter.” –Jim Steenburgh, University of Utah Professor of Atmospheric Sciences
You don’t have to be a scientist who monitors Utah’s Snow Telemetry sites to know that winter 2022/2023 has been a special one, but if you do spend your pouring over data and crunching numbers you’ll find you have to go way back to 1952 to find a snowpack bigger than this year.
For perspective, if all the current snow in Utah melted at once, the Beehive State would be two feet deep in water! Obviously this is great news for skiers and snowboarders but its also amazing for the state’s water supply as 95% of Utah’s water supply is supplied by the snowpack:
“That’s the water that we use for everything—for agriculture, for municipal purposes, for our lawns, for our taps, all of it. It all comes from our snowpack.” –Jordan Clayton, National Resources Conservation Service
Fresh measurements were collected at midnight last night, we will be sure to update when the numbers come in. LET IT SNOW!
Utah is in its 7th day of a record-breaking streak for daily snowpack levels and is .3 inches away from a 40-year snow water equivalent record of 26 inches. Check out the below interactive chart at https://t.co/nmss6PNFY1 #utwx @USDA_NRCS pic.twitter.com/Yj5LJwa4T6
— NRCS Utah (@NRCS_Utah) March 23, 2023
Our SNOTEL average for Utah is currently showing right at 26 inches for snow water equivalent. Curious about how this data is collected? Learn more here: https://t.co/owbZ9AkePH #utwx pic.twitter.com/M8DYgu0sAk
— NRCS Utah (@NRCS_Utah) March 24, 2023