State of the Snowpack

It's pretty incredible that with all the snow we received over the past 10 days or so, we are still near or below median at most northern Utah SNOTEL stations.  

Source: NRCS

I think the only site that is above median in northern Utah is Dry Fork in the Northern Oquirrh Mountains.  The recovery there was pretty incredible, with a net gain of about 5 inches in our most recent storm cycle, enabling it to claw out from near the bottom to 101% of median.  

The fattest snowpack in terms of total snow water equivalent is at the Ben Lomond Peak SNOTEL, which now sits at 24.1 inches, which is still only 80% of median.  

Source: NRCS

The Snowbird SNOTEL is a bit behind in total SWE sitting at 22.4 inches, which at that location is 90% of median.  

Source: NRCS

So, the skiing has improved immensely, but the snowpack is still below median! I'm suspect water managers are thankful for the latest storm cycle, but still hoping for more.  

Comparison of the graphs above (note that the scale for Dry Fork is different than for Ben Lomond and Snowbird) shows three salient characteristics of the snow climate of northern Utah.

First, the area around Ben Lomond Peak and the North Ogden Valley is as I like to say "pound for pound the snowiest in northern Utah."  For its elevation, there's no region that I'm aware of that gets more snow.  Eventually, the median snowpack at Snowbird overtakes that at Ben Lomond, but this reflects elevation and aspect.  The Snowbird SNOTEL is on a north aspect at 9177 feet, whereas the Ben Lomond SNOTEL is on an east aspect at 8000 feet.  Thus, the snow accumulation season at Snowbird is longer, enabling the median to eventually peak higher in late April, but through April 1, the median snowpack water equivalent at Ben Lomond is greater.  

Second, the snowpack in the Oquirrhs is typically about half of that in Little Cottonwood.  At least that's my rule of thumb.  The Dry Fork SNOTEL sits at only 10", whereas Snowbird is at 22.4.  However, Dry Fork is quite a bit lower (7147 feet), so that's not really a fair comparison. Another option is the Rocky Basin Settlement SNOTEL at 8702 feet, which sits at 13.8", or about 61% of Snowbird. On the other hand, that is a skiff above Thaynes Canyon on the Wasatch Back (12.0"), which did relatively poorly in this recent storm cycle.  In fact, that SNOTEL still sits well below median.

Source: NRCS

Which brings us to the third characteristic, and that is the remarkable contrast in natural snowpack between Little Cottonwood Canyon and the Wasatch Back, which we discussed in the previous post.  Right now, the snowpack at Thaynes Canyon is only 54% of that at Snowbird.  Usually this time of year the contrast isn't that large (the Thaynes Canyon median is 65% of the Snowbird median), so so far this year, Park City has gotten skunked even more than usual relative to Little Cottonwood.