Another month of dry weather has put Tooele Valley three inches behind normal after just two months of accumulating precipitation for next summer.
The valley saw just two inches of snow from two storms during November for a total of .44 inches of precipitation, according to data from Ned Bevan, a cooperative weather observer with the National Weather Service.
Normal for the month is 1.69 inches.
Tooele typically accumulates 3.5 inches of precipitation in October and November, but is currently 2.94 inches below that mark, according to Bevan.
Snow levels in the surrounding mountains are also running below normal county-wide. The Rocky Basin snotel station reported a snow-water equivalent of 1.2 inches on the first of the month, compared to a normal of 4.4 inches.
Mining Fork above Grantsville was .7 inches below normal for snow-water equivalent, and Vernon Creek was .6 inches below normal. Valley-wide, snowpack sits at roughly 46 percent of normal, making the Tooele watershed area the driest in the state, said Troy Brosten, assistant snow survey supervisor for the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Utah office.
At the other end of the spectrum, Bear River currently sits at 123 percent of normal, he said.
“Yeah, it’s low, but it can rapidly increase by just having a snow storm with a couple of inches,” Brosten said. “But the storms that have been hitting us seem to be more on the north side of Utah, kind of like last year.”
The valley also saw a few unusual warm spells last month, and came within two degrees of breaking the area’s all-time November record on the first of the month. According to the Western Regional Climate Center, the highest temperature ever recorded in November in Tooele reached 74 degrees. On Nov. 1 of this year, it topped out at 73 degrees.
But for the most part, temperatures remained within normal ranges, with an average high for the month coming out to 50.7 degrees, and an average low of 30.6 degrees, according to Bevan. Normal temperatures for November range from a high of 49.7 to a low of 31.
December is expected to remain warm, but may also bring above-average snowfall, according to the national Climate Prediction Center. That trend is expected to continue into the first few months of 2015.
“We do have some good storm systems coming through, so that’s promising,” Brosten said. “It could go either way still, with it being a good water season or not. We’re not sure.”
Oct. 1 marked the start of the 2014-15 water year which will conclude next Sept. 30.