Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
- Utah Gov. Spencer Cox celebrates snowpack increase, which has some basins out of record-low levels.
- Despite improvement, Cox warns southern Utah cities may have to make sacrifices due to the low snowpack.
- Utah's reservoir system remains 82% full, but drought conditions also persist across most of the state.
SALT LAKE CITY — In most years, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox wouldn't be thrilled to see snowpack levels in a vital basin at only about two-thirds of their normal levels this late in the season.
However, after the southwestern Utah snowpack basin has gained 3.9 inches of snow-water equivalent since March 3, nearly tripling its season total, he's happy to see it leap out of the record-low levels it was plagued with at the end of meteorological winter.
"It's kind of sad that I'm celebrating 65% of normal, but I'm celebrating 65% of normal in southwestern Utah right now because we were at 17% like four weeks ago," he said Thursday during his monthly news conference with Utah reporters.
Yet, even with this month's much-needed bump, Cox also said he believes water districts — especially in southern Utah and other areas with below-normal snowpack — will have to work closely with municipalities on water consumption this year.
"Northern Utah looks fantastic right now, but southern Utah is in for it," the governor said. "Everybody's going to have to sacrifice, and that means municipalities are going to have to sacrifice."
Recent storms have been huge for Utah's snowpack, which accounts for about 95% of the state's water supply.
Utah's snowpack sites currently average 14 inches of snow-water equivalent, which is a measure of the water in the mountain snow. Their level on Thursday is 104% of normal for this point in the year, and nearly 90% of the median seasonal average with a few weeks left before the normal peak, per Natural Resources Conservation Service data.
Southwestern Utah's snowpack total — despite the increase — remains slightly above half of its 30-year seasonal median peak. The region averaged just 2.3 inches of water in its mountains after many winter storms skipped the region in December, January and most of February, keeping it within reach of the basin's lowest snowpack total since modern tracking began over 40 years ago.
Four other basins across southern and central Utah also ended February on pace for record-low levels. It's why state water managers warned that most basins were "likely to experience below-average streamflows" once the snowpack melted at the end of the snowpack collection period.
Conditions have improved in March, but several basins in those regions still have totals between 48% and 72% of their respective normal seasonal peaks. Some other basins in that area have now inched closer to near-normal seasons, led by the San Pitch basin rising to 88%, per federal data.
It's a different story up north. Tooele Valley-Vernon Creek is the only basin that has already surpassed its seasonal normal, but a few others in Utah's northern half — including Provo-Utah Lake-Jordan, Weber-Ogden and Bear River basins — are on the verge of a normal season with a few weeks left before their normal peaks.
Still, experts caution that dry conditions ahead of the snowpack could hamper snowmelt efficiency this spring, as more water is expected to end up going toward recharging groundwater in dry areas before going into creeks, streams and rivers that feed into the state's reservoirs. More than three-fourths of the state remains in at least moderate drought, the U.S. Drought Monitor reported on Thursday.
What does help is Utah's reservoir system remains 82% full, well ahead of the March average. Salt Lake City water managers said this month they're planning to push water conservation measures this spring and summer regardless of this year's snowpack, as warmer and drier conditions could return later this year.
The Utah Legislature also passed a few water measures in its latest session. Cox said Thursday that he plans to sign HB274, which allows water districts to set pricing based on consumption tiers beginning in 2030, offering a financial incentive to consume less.
The governor said state water policies shouldn't be harmful, but he thinks it's important that the state is "more responsible" with water as the state continues to grow.
"Everybody is going to have to understand the true cost of water," he said.
