Annual 'Let's look at the Lake Powell Snowpack' thread

[UNSTUCK]

I was worried back in October when they closed the Antelope ramp halfway through our trip. We backed down to the very end of the ramp the day they closed it. Forced us over to Wahweap the next day. I don't imagine it's normal for them to close it due to low water?

[talltigeguy]

I was worried back in October when they closed the Antelope ramp halfway through our trip. We backed down to the very end of the ramp the day they closed it. Forced us over to Wahweap the next day. I don't imagine it's normal for them to close it due to low water?

Any time the lake is low, the ramp is out of the water. The end of the ramp turns into a 400 foot straight drop, so not the kind of ramp you actually want to have tires slip over the edge from.

[boonecragun]

Farmers Almanac calling for a late push of snow. Going to need a dump to make up for last year's lack-luster performance.

[UNSTUCK]

I don't know. Salt Lake City as been mid 40's to 50's the last week or so. That's crazy! I know February is the big month, but so far we are getting a SLOW start. I'd much rather spread 20 feet of snow throughout the whole winter and not just in a couple weeks. I guess I'll take it any way though.

[UNSTUCK]

I ran across this chart this morning and thought it was pretty good. You can select many different years on the right side to compare. This year looks pretty similar to 2018 so far. What we really need is several 2017's in a row.

https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/W...e_of_utah.html

[talltigeguy]

Hopefully this last storm gives a boost, but we need about a month straight of that. That is a pretty cool website UNSTUCK . It seems that when a winter starts off this bad, it almost never gets up to average, they point out this year is at the 7th percentile for snowpack at this point.

[UNSTUCK]

https://www.ksl.com/article/50105861...over-next-week

Here it comes!!!

[sandm]

https://www.ksl.com/article/50105861...over-next-week

Here it comes!!!

good mews unless you hate snow and live in slc

hope it keeps up and we see some reversal of the decreasing water in the lakes.

[UNSTUCK]

If, and that's a BIG if, we get what they're expecting, 4-6 inches of water (6 feet of snow) will put us right into the middle of the average for the time period.

And what's best, they are calling for mostly mountain snow. Not much on the valley floor. That's the best scenario. Keep the roads clean and dump in the mountains. I like it!

[UNSTUCK]

So we are getting hit pretty hard (as is the rest of the country). The numbers don't seem to be jiving though. My main ski resort is advertising 53" in the last 7 days. I heard on the news yesterday that 10" of snow equals 1" of water. So that should be 5 inches of water. In that same timeframe NRCS is showing 1.7" of water. Likely the average over the whole state though. Anyways I'm not sure how much of Northern Utah water even makes it to Powell. Probably not much. What is at least a little promising is that Southern Utah's numbers are looking better than the rest of the state. That's water that will make it to Powell.
47 more snow days to go. Here's hoping!

[talltigeguy]

With the recent storms, the LP snowpack only bumped to 86% of normal. It is better than where it was, but pray for more snow!

http://lakepowell.water-data.com/

[talltigeguy]

It seems that about half of my posts, I cannot edit them after the fact. The above is one of them.

Remember that a large portion of the LP water comes from western wyoming and western Colorado. So Utah snow fails to tell the entire story.

[UNSTUCK]

I'd be interested to know if they will ever adjust to a new full pool instead of keeping all the numbers based off of 3700 ft. Seems I remember reading that given the opportunity they will never let it reach 3700 feet again. Well maybe if every other reservoir up stream and down stream was at full pool. I think the priority was to get/keep Mead topped off.

[freeheel4life]

So we are getting hit pretty hard (as is the rest of the country). The numbers don't seem to be jiving though. My main ski resort is advertising 53" in the last 7 days. I heard on the news yesterday that 10" of snow equals 1" of water. So that should be 5 inches of water. In that same timeframe NRCS is showing 1.7" of water. Likely the average over the whole state though. Anyways I'm not sure how much of Northern Utah water even makes it to Powell. Probably not much. What is at least a little promising is that Southern Utah's numbers are looking better than the rest of the state. That's water that will make it to Powell.
47 more snow days to go. Here's hoping!

10":1" is usually pretty generous. If you get into snow science the Intermountain snow pack vs a maritime snow pack has very different qualities. One of those qualities is water percentage in the snow that falls. Maritime snowpack (Sierras, Cascades, Coastal Alaska, Western BC) gets higher moisture content in their snow which is why it sticks to steeper mountains and faces, and of course when it melts you actually get more water out of it.

Intermountain and continental snowpacks gets less moisture content snowflakes hence your famous "Champagne " and "blower " powder. I would guess NRCS has moisture percentages from the SNOTEL network they use to monitor and have a formula for runoff/water based on moisture percentage snow that has fallen.

[UNSTUCK]

I had thought about that and actually wondered why the news article I pulled all this information from didn't do anything to explain snow water content. Just a blanket statement of 10:1, which in this case was obviously incorrect. Hopefully our snow keeps up. We may just squeak out an average year. And hopefully the other states around us are doing at least as well.