A Wet, Mild February

It's too early for a full monthly recap, but the numbers for the first 20 days of February are worth a look.

Total precipitation at the Salt Lake City International Airport through yesterday was 2.93" which rates as the 7th most on record *for the entire month.*

Source: https://xmacis.rcc-acis.org/

We can climb up a little higher before the end of the month (and will probably get some more today and tonight).

It has also been warm.  For the first 20 days of the month, the average temperature was 40.5F, which rates as the 9th warmest.  

Source: https://xmacis.rcc-acis.org/

Finally, despite all of that precipitation, we've only had 1.2" of snow for the month at the airport.  Snowfall has been scant at the lower elevations, even as the snowpack has really benefited at upper elevations.  

Speaking of upper elevations, the Snowbird snotel now sits at 33.8" of water equivalent (black line below).  This is 142% of median for the day.  That's a pretty healthy snowpack.  Last year on this day we were at 40.3", but we shouldn't make comparisons with last year.  That said, a look at the purple line below shows that it was about now that Mother Nature hit the boosters and things really took off last year.   

Source: NRCS

We'll see what happens this year.  If you are like me and you don't consider it over until it's over, we are at 81% of the median peak.  I'll feel better for runoff when we get to 100%, although one has to feel good about where we are right now.