Total precipitation for January in Tooele City did improve because of storms, but the first four months of the 2017-18 water year are still way behind normal due to a stingy Mother Nature.
By Jan. 31, the month in Tooele City had received 1.09 inches of moisture and 10 inches of snow. Normal moisture for January is 1.07 inches with 12.7 inches of snow.
Water years begin on Oct. 1 and end on Sept. 30 of the following year.
From Oct. 1 to Jan. 31, Tooele has received 2.92 inches of precipitation, according to Ned Bevan, Tooele weather observer for the National Weather Service. Normal precipitation after those first four months is 6.06 inches.
Current precipitation totals are a stark contrast from last year at this time.
On Jan. 31 last year, Tooele had 6.80 inches of precipitation and 40.6 inches of snow since Oct. 1, 2016.
On Jan. 31 this year, Tooele had only 19 inches of total snowfall for the water year.
“A stable high pressure system over Utah has pushed all the storm weather to the north or south of Utah,” said Troy Brosten, snow survey supervisor for the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service.
“This may be in part due to the La Nina signature, which tends to suggest a wet, colder north and dry, warm south winter pattern,” Brosten said.
He said snow water equivalent and snow depth measurements at Tooele County Snotel sites are at about 49 percent of normal.
Thursday’s readings showed 21 inches of snow depth at Rocky Basin in Settlement Canyon with 5.8 inches of snow water equivalent. A year ago, snow depth at Rocky Basin measured 57 inches with 18.6 inches of snow water equivalent.
At the Mining Fork site in the Stansbury Mountains, snow depth was 21 inches on Jan. 31 with snow water equivalent at 5.3 inches. A year ago, the snow depth was 53 inches and snow water equivalent was 16.9 inches.
“Basically, I don’t think we will rebound back to normal at these sites,” Brosten said. “January was a dud. We only had two decent storms during the month, and it looks like no significant storms are forecast for the next six to 10 days.”
Tooele County was hit by a snowstorm on Jan. 19-20.
“We would need a similar storm every week up through April 1 to get within the ballpark of a normal snowpack year,’ Brosten said.
The average high temperature for January was 44.2 degrees and the average low was 25.4 degrees. The maximum high temperature was 61 degrees on Jan. 30 with the maximum low temperature of 31 degrees on Jan. 20.
The minimum high temperature was 39 degrees on Jan. 12, and the minimum low temperature was 15 degrees on Jan. 22.
