This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The 2014-2015 water year has been volatile — first came a dismal winter with less than half the normal amount of snow, followed by May with more than twice the average amount of rain.
And now that it's all said and done, most parts of the state fell short of normal precipitation markers this year — with northern Utah faring worse in the drought than the stereotypically drier southern area of the state.
Drought conditions continue to affect the majority of the state, Troy Brosten, assistant Utah snow survey supervisor, told members of the Utah Board of Water Resources during a water supply report at the end of September.
In some cases, the drought has worsened over the past year — at the end of September 2014, the U.S. Drought Monitor reported that drought conditions affected 59 percent of the state; that figure has edged up to 63 percent.
The severity of that drought has also increased, with the drought monitor reporting this week that 27 percent of the state was experiencing severe drought conditions, up from 13 percent last year.
"We have been in conditions like this for the four past years," Brosten said, "so we have a long way to go."
The drought's progression is not uniform across the state, Brosten said; the southern part of the state, especially on the southeast side, finished the year with near-normal precipitation totals and saw drought conditions improve.
Northern Utah is drier this year compared to last, he said.
Salt Lake City's drainage basin was one of the driest at year end, after having accumulated 77 percent of what is considered the normal precipitation total. The Weber- Ogden basin did somewhat better, with a total at 81 percent of normal. The southwestern basin, which encompasses St. George, sat at 83 percent of normal. On the other side of the state, the southeastern basin, which includes Moab, finished the year at 94 percent of normal, and the northernmost Bear River basin finished at 90 percent.
Long-term forecasts expect more of the same. The National Climate Prediction Center expects below-normal precipitation totals in northern Utah this winter and above-normal precipitation in the southern part of the state on account of an increasingly strong El Nino developing in the Pacific Ocean. The forecast also predicts unseasonably warm temperatures in northern Utah this winter.
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