Utah will likely set historic snow record Friday

SALT LAKE CITY — Thursday was on track to make history in Utah, with the snowpack ready to inch past a 40-year-old record. It all came down to a tenth of an inch.

From his computer at the National Resources Conservation Service office Thursday, Jordan Clayton pointed out a graph with a staggering black line representing 2023 soaring above lines of various colors representing past years.

The graph showed data at a single Snow Telemetry (SNOTEL) site that measures the snow water equivalent (SWE) in the snowpack. That’s how much water would be left if all the snow melted.

At this site, the 2023 maximum reached far above previous seasons.

“This is really just going crazy. This is the previous maximum– you can see we’re way outside of the previous maximum if I zoom in on this,” Clayton said, pointing to the screen. “This is the most we’d ever seen at that particular site.”

Utah is in its 7th day of a record-breaking streak for daily snowpack levels and is .3 inches away from a 40-year snow water equivalent record of 26 inches. Check out the below interactive chart at https://t.co/nmss6PNFY1 #utwx @USDA_NRCS pic.twitter.com/Yj5LJwa4T6

— NRCS Utah (@NRCS_Utah) March 23, 2023

The Utah Snow Survey, which Clayton supervises, gathers data from 138 SNOTEL sites across Utah. The data is calculated into the statewide SWE average.

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