April 1st is near the time of peak snowpack for many Utah SNOTEL stations. On average, lower elevations peak earlier than this, whereas upper elevations peak later, but April 1 is traditionally a good date for getting an idea of how fat the snowpack is for the spring runoff.
This year's April 1 snowpack is no joke, with the vast majority of stations below median (note the plots below are technically through March 31).
To show this, below is a plot of the percentile snow water equivalent. This percentile represents that percentage of previous seasons in the period of record with a lower snowpack snow water equivalent (SWE) than current. A value of 25 means that 25% of the seasons have less (SWE), whereas 75% have more. The higher the percentile, fatter the snowpack compared to past seasons.
Many Utah SNOTEL stations are at or below 37.5, some well below. A handful are near or above 50. This includes sites in the northeast Uintas, and scattered about in central and northern Utah.
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For sites in the central Wasatch, Mill D North is at 44, Snowbird 32, Brighton 18, and Thaynes Canyon on the Park City side, 13. This hasn't been a great snow season, but it has been especially bad on the Park City side of the central Wasatch, which is a bit of a double whammy since that area climatologically gets less snow in the first place.
A look at the seasonal snowpack trace shows there is currently 16.3 inches of water equivalent at Thaynes Canyon (elevation 9247 feet). Only 12% (4) of the 33 seasons in the period of record were worse than this on this date. Median for 31 March is 21.5 inches, so we sit about 25% lower in SWE compared to a winter in the middle of the distribution.
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| NRCS |
The natural advantages of Little Cottonwood become apparent when you look at Snowbird (9177 feet), which is at a comparable elevation, but the SWE is nearly double that at Thanes Canyon (29.7 inches). However, by Little Cottonwood Standards, this is still only good for the 32nd percentile. Basically, 2/3 of the seasons had a fatter snowpack then we have presently.
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What can I say. It hasn't been a great snow season. Maybe next season will be better. There's always hope for the future.
After two above average seasons (one of which being way above average), I doubt anyone is surprised. Hopefully we avoid another string of really bad seasons like the early to mid 2010's featured.
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