Last winter's deep snows went a long way toward catching this arid state up to average after a dry 2007. Preliminary numbers tracked by the National Weather Service show most of Utah's major watersheds gathered better than 90 percent of normal precipitation in the water year, which ended Tuesday.
"It was a relatively good water year," said Brent Bernard, hydrologist with the service's Colorado Basin River Forecast Center in Salt Lake City.
A dry summer and autumn, though, left Utah farmers and wildfire fighters to worry for next year. Soil moisture is down - way down in some areas - and could suck up much of next year's snowmelt unless things change this fall.
"Right now, the sponge is dry," said Utah snow-survey supervisor Randy Julander.
How dry? Only a fifth of normal soil moisture remains in southwestern Utah and the basin around Utah Lake. Southeastern Utah is at a quarter of normal. The Bear and Weber river basins both are below a third of normal. A storm this weekend could start to change that.
"Almost all of those are lower than they have been the last four years," Julander said. "The bottom line is we haven't had a whole lot of precipitation this fall, and the end of summer was pretty dry."
Likewise, reservoirs are down. Where normally a 50 percent capacity this time of year would make water managers comfortable, reservoirs in the Bear and Sevier basins are holding 20 percent and 23 percent of their potential.
"The Bear is in a world of hurt because Bear Lake is still way, way down," Julander said. The lake is at just 18 percent of its holding capacity.
The Weber River Basin reservoirs are at 43 percent of their capacities, dragged down by a Willard Bay pool that's still refilling after levee repairs a few years ago.
Other major irrigation systems are holding more of their capacity: 46 percent in southeastern Utah, 56 percent in southwestern Utah, 78 percent in the Duchesne River Basin and 78 percent in the Provo River Basin, Julander said.
Ultimately, a midwinter blast of snow that thrilled skiers made the difference for the year, National Weather Service hydrologist Brian McInerney said. From mid-December through mid-February, snow kept stacking up until it reached 140 percent of normal in the Wasatch Front. Then below-normal temperatures chilled the mountains through a dry March and April, helping to keep the snowpack and moisture in place for an orderly spring thaw.
-PATTY HENETZ contributed to the story.
