Drought in the West

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jsburger
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Drought in the West

Post by jsburger »

This has been a phenomenal winter here in Utah for the drought. Also for California as many of you may have seen on the news. The snow pack here is between 175% to over 200% of average depending on where you are. The water equivalent is 25.2". The all time high is 26" back in 1983 when we had all kinds of flooding in the spring. That was the year the Great Salt Lake hit an all time high. This past summer it hit an all time low but this winter it has already risen 2 feet. The spring runoff should increase that substantially.

Alta ski area about 15 miles east of Salt Lake City hit 706 inches of snow today. Their average is 500 inches. Alta typically gets 70 inches in April so they will probably top 800 inches for the year which would be an all time high. Park City which is a little farther east is at 500 inches which is an all time high already.

This won't eliminate the drought but it will come close for this summer.
John & Mary Burger
Eagle's Lair Woodshop
Hooper, UT
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db5
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Re: Drought in the West

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Saw on news tonight that blowing winds had created huge sand dunes more than 8feet high in the OK Panhandle. There has been no rain there since August. Another dust bowl?
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Re: Drought in the West

Post by garys »

Lots of snow here this Winter, and the cold temps have prevented any of it from melting all Winter. We have 95" of snow accumulated and on huge piles everywhere. Normal snow here is 45" for a Winter, and the record snowfall is 101.6 so it wouldn't take much more to reach the record.
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jsburger
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Re: Drought in the West

Post by jsburger »

We are closing in on the record also. This week we hit the third all time snowiest winter. The record is just over 800 inches hit in the early 80's. After all the snow this week Alta is a 745 inches and they average 70 inches in April. So there is a very good chance for a record.
John & Mary Burger
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john_001
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Re: Drought in the West

Post by john_001 »

Here in NJ, we almost have a record in the other direction: this is the second least snowy winter since WW1. And even when we had a snowstorm, it was above freezing during the day and the roads were just wet. Our snow plowing guy, who comes when there's more than 2", has never showed up this year. The very northern part of the state got a bit more, but the south got almost no snow at all this winter. It's been a strange distribution of weather this year.
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jsburger
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Re: Drought in the West

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Well, it just keeps snowing. Alta had 30" of snow Thursday night and hit 809" so far. The previous record was 748". The water equivalent is also set to hit an all time record. The modern record (since 1980) is 26 inches. The all time record was 28.8" back in 1952. As of yesterday we are at 27.9" equivalent water.

There is another big storm coming Monday and Tuesday. The Cottonwood Canyons, which is where Alta is located, are predicted to get 40" to 50" of snow from that storm. Alta may break 900" this year. :D :D
John & Mary Burger
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RFGuy
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Re: Drought in the West

Post by RFGuy »

So, the Tonga volcano eruption from a little over a year ago released an unprecedented (in modern recorded history) 50 million tons of water vapor into the atmosphere. While volcano eruptions can release "some" water during eruption, what was unprecedented about the Tonga eruption was both the quantity released and the fact that it released it high into the upper atmosphere. I do believe this significant increase in water vapor in the upper atmosphere has had an impact on weather around the world over the last year. The last 6 months or so here (my experience where I live) in the Southwest we have had generally cooler temps and A LOT more precipitation and cloud cover than normal. As a result, the 23 year mega-drought that has persisted to this day in the Southwest is starting to reverse. Yes, I know there are parts of the world that have been warmer than normal over the last year, (and hopefully that is only temporary) but I do believe this significant volcanic event is part of a larger cycle of the Earth attempting to heal. We will take any precipitation we can get here in the desert Southwest...it has been a looooong drought. :)

https://www.livescience.com/tonga-erupt ... ce-warming
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jsburger
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Re: Drought in the West

Post by jsburger »

Well, the numbers are in from this weeks storm. In the last three days Snowbird got 67" of snow and Alta got 63". Alta's base depth is 240" and their season total it 878". Brighton and Solitude ski areas in Big Cottonwood Canyon were closed today because of too much snow. The state wide snow pack average is over 200%. This is an historic year. The drought is not over but this will go a LONG way to help.
John & Mary Burger
Eagle's Lair Woodshop
Hooper, UT
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