Utah's June showers will bring - what?

Even if it stopped raining today, this still would be an extra juicy June.

And it doesn't look like the clouds are about to stop letting loose.

The National Weather Service predicts waves of moisture -- including afternoon and evening thundershowers -- will keep piling into northern Utah this week. Wildfire season is delayed, farmers have a green outlook and you might not have to water your lawn or garden for a while.

 

So how much water has fallen?

Salt Lake City had absorbed nearly an inch of rain from June 1 through Wednesday afternoon. Normally, the capital gets only about a third of an inch in the first 10 days of June. That 0.98 inch of moisture already has eclipsed the

0.77 that normally falls throughout the month.

All those drops spring from an abnormal influx of tropical moisture -- just "normal variability," National Weather Service meteorologist Pete Wilensky says.

The days also cooled this week -- low 70s instead of the normal high 70s -- although there were several 80-degree days to start the month.

 

When might the sunshine take over?

The weather service expects the pattern of wet days and stormy afternoons or nights to persist into next week.

"We will dry out and warm up by the end of the month," Wilensky says. "In a few weeks, we're going to be complaining about the heat and the dryness."

 

Do I need to water the yard at all?

No need to water more than once this week in Salt Lake or Utah counties or at all in the rest of northern Utah, according to the Utah Department of Natural Resources' online outlook. Southern Utahns might need three waterings.

The state counts 20 minutes under pop-up spray heads or 40 under impact rotor sprinklers as a single irrigation.

But in individual yards and gardens it's possible that no watering is needed. Salt Lake City water

conservation specialist Stephanie Duer suggests sticking a screwdriver into the soil to check. If it goes in easily, it's plenty wet for most lawns and plants. Visual inspection also works: If the lawn takes on a silvery cast or blades don't bounce back in footprints, it probably needs water.

For now, Duer recommends turning off the automatic sprinklers and checking for moisture every morning. And don't get hose-happy just because garden plants wilt a bit in the afternoon. Wait to see if they still are droopy come morning.

 

Will this help or hurt fire season?

Utah already was looking forward to a normal wildfire year, and the recent rains have pushed back the blazes.

The range might have been burning in places now if not for the rain and cool temperatures, says Rick Ochoa, a meteorologist with the Interagency Fire Center in Boise.

"You guys are looking really good right now," he says.

The extra moisture could grow enough greenery to intensify late-season flames, he says, but on the whole Utah shouldn't have more than the average fire severity.

 

Will flooding follow?

Utah's annual snowmelt has been orderly, so the extra rain doesn't portend floods, says Brian McInerney, a National Weather Service hydrologist. It has filled all of Utah's major reservoirs, except for Lake Powell and Bear Lake, each of which would require several normal to wet years to fill.

"The soils aren't saturated, so this is infiltrating [the ground]," McInerney says. "There really isn't any threat of flooding unless there's a flash flood from a thunderstorm that just perches over an area."

Whereas farmers and homeowners were drawing down reservoirs for irrigation by this time last year, McInerney says, this year they are storing more for later.