Record snowpack brings flooding and drought relief
Utah’s record snow this winter was welcome after years of a historic drought but now the state is bracing for flooding as temperatures rise.
The prospect of floods brings back memories of 1983, when melting snow in May turned State Street into a river in downtown Lake City and thousands of volunteers helped with sandbagging efforts. Kayakers paddled on the “State Street River” and people fished in the water.
There is no expectation that State Street will turn into a waterway again but some areas already have been hit with flooding, including in Kaysville and along Emigration Creek. Many communities are providing sandbags to residents so they’ll be ready for a deluge.
With snowpack levels close to or exceeding 200% in much of the state, Gov. Spencer Cox on April 18 issued Executive Order 2023-05 declaring a state of emergency due to flooding. In the order, the governor notes warming temperatures are melting the snowpack and creating significant runoff.
“These conditions have resulted in avalanches, landslides, mudslides, and rockslides in Utah and may create risks of these and other dangerous conditions throughout Utah in the coming months,” the order says.
During the session this spring, the Utah Legislature appropriated $5 million for flood mitigation and response and the Division of Emergency Management has been partnering with state and local stakeholders on those efforts. However, that money has been depleted.
Under Utah code, Cox can utilize all available government resources as reasonably necessary to cope with a state of emergency, including the State Disaster Recovery Restricted Account. The order permits Utah to seek aid from the federal government and other states.
Many communities have declared local states of emergency and requested help from state departments and agencies, according to the order.
“We’re incredibly grateful for the moisture we’ve received this winter, but the extra rain and hefty snowpack present increasing flood risks as the snow melts,” Cox said in a news release. “By declaring a state of emergency, the state will be better able to tap into reserve funds to support flood response and mitigation efforts. In short, we’ll be better prepared for what lies ahead this spring.”
The release says crews from the Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands are available to assist local governments and volunteers with filling sandbags, removing debris and operating heavy equipment.
The order is effective for 30 days and could be extended by the Legislature.
A memorable snow season
Utah had the deepest snowpack on record this year based on the statewide snow water equivalent. That measurement is the depth of water that would result if the entire snowpack melted. (Snow water equivalent is different from accumulated snowfall.) The snowpack usually peaks around the first of April and has a 30-year median of 15.8 inches of snow water equivalent. The peak this year was 30 inches on April 4 based on readings from 114 weather stations around the state that measure snow. Previous high marks were an estimated 28.8 inches in 1952 — when the snow water equivalent was based on manual measurements made once a month at 47 sites — and 26 inches in 1983.
The snow has been melting at locations around the state but there also has been a little bit of new snow, according to Jordan Clayton, Utah Snow Survey supervisor for the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.
“Even though we’ve lost 10% of our snowpack, we’re still above the amount of snow that was on the ground in 1983,” Clayton said.
A Natural Resources Conservation Service report calls the 2022-2023 winter “the kind of snow season that folks will talk about for decades.” Statewide, the snow water equivalent measured was 200% of normal as of April 1, compared with 75% of normal at this time last year, the report says.
The highest snow water equivalent recorded in the state this year as of April 4 was 82.8 inches at Ben Lomond Peak in the Ogden area. The top measurements recorded in the Salt Lake City area, which also were the second and third highest in Utah, were in Little Cottonwood Canyon, at Atwater with 71.9 inches and Snowbird at 68.8 inches.
The Farmington and Parrish Creek stations received the most snow water equivalent in Davis County, with 66 inches and 55.1 inches respectively. Utah County’s highest peak was 50.1 inches at the Timpanogos Divide station.
Other snow water equivalent measurements include the Tony Grove Lake site in Cache County, 56.6 inches; the Midway Valley and Kolob sites in southwestern Utah, 50 inches and 50.1 inches, respectively; Mount Baldy on the Wasatch Plateau, 40.7 inches; the Gold Basin site in the La Sal Mountains near Moab, 34.1 inches; and the East Willow Creek site on top of the Book Cliffs northeast of Crescent Junction, 22.4 inches.
Boosting the water supply
Jared Hansen, at the Central Utah Water Conservancy District (CUWCD), said this winter will be remembered a long time because “it was so epic and unexpected.”
“This year is certainly a record breaking one,” Hansen, who is CUWCD’s Central Utah Project manager, said. “We’ve seen snow that we’ve never seen before.”
CUWCD has eight reservoirs, with the larger ones, Jordanelle and Starvation, operating under formalized flood control that is overseen by the U.S. Corps of Engineers, Hansen said.
Those plans are well-tested and have been in place for decades, he said. In addition, CUWCD also utilizes its other reservoirs to mitigate flooding, continually adjusting diversions, he said.
Current conditions are different from those in 1983, Hansen said.
Forty years ago, the snow just kept coming almost through the end of May without any warm spells, he said. Then, at the end of the month, it suddenly warmed up and the snow came off, he said.
This spring, there have been some daily shifts in the flows, with snow melting more when the day warms up and the melting slowing down when the evening gets cool, Hansen said.
Improvements in public works across the state after 1983 also are helping, he said.
“We’re in such a better state with our infrastructure today than we were then that even if we had an exact repeat, it would be much different,” Hansen said of potential flooding.
He added anything could happen and CUWCD is monitoring the situation.
“We’re certainly paying attention to the weather on a daily basis,” Hansen said.
A benefit of all the snow is the mitigation of some of the effects of the drought. The warming and cooling cycle is putting water back into the soil and the water levels are rising at the reservoirs.
Bart Leeflang, CUWCD’s Colorado River program manager, said prior to this winter, Lake Powell’s water level was on a trajectory to drop below the minimum 3,490 feet needed for Glen Canyon Dam to produce hydropower.
“There are communities throughout Utah that benefit from hydropower production at Glen Canyon,” Leeflang said. “It’s absolutely critical to us in Utah that we continue producing power. It was so bad that we had released almost 600,000 acre-feet of water from Flaming Gorge to prop up Lake Powell.”
CUWCD had planned to release more water but stopped because the winter conditions are so good, he said.
Now, the winter runoff is predicted to increase Lake Powell’s level of 3,522 feet as of April 18 by approximately 70 feet by the end of September 2024, Leeflang said. In addition, during the next year, Flaming Gorge is expected to recover to its typical levels, he said.
Protecting property
As part of the preparations for flooding, the Utah Division of Emergency Management has activated the State Emergency Response Team and deployed resources that include 28 sandbagging machines, two million sandbags that were distributed to areas where they were needed most and 36 pieces of heavy equipment, such as bulldozers, for debris removal, according to public information officer Wade Mathews.
Other projects include outfitting response trailers, staging channeling devices and procuring water pumps for water diversion, Mathews said. In addition, the state supplemented an already existing public awareness campaign with television ads about flood risk.
“We’re doing a lot of interviews and presentations and social media about preparedness for flooding,” Mathews said. “We are encouraging people to clear ditches, to get sandbags and to look out for their neighbors.
To monitor the flooding, the state has partnered with LiveView Technologies (LVT), a Utah County-based company, to place mobile surveillance cameras along rivers and streams. Live feeds from the solar-powered units will help state and local officials to deploy crews and equipment where they’re needed most, Cox said in his #OneUtah newsletter.
LVT says dozens of cameras will be placed at key locations across Utah in the coming weeks. The live feeds can be viewed at UtahFlooding.com.
To protect their property, people should identify their risk by going to floodhazards.utah.gov and putting in their street address, he said. A map will show if the home is in a high-, moderate- or low-risk area for flooding.
“Low risk does not equal no risk,” Mathews says. “Wherever it snows or rains, it can flood. It’s important to know that risk.”
Residents of areas that are high risk for flooding also should look into getting flood insurance, which is available to homeowners and renters, Mathews said. He points out that one inch of water can cause more than $25,000 in damages.
Sandbagging to divert water is another step to protect a home, Mathews said. He recommends clearing debris from ditches and riverbeds around the property, installing a sump pump if water gets in the basement frequently and clearing drains and downspouts.
Mathews also encourages people to take pictures and videos of the contents in their home, including furniture, appliances, electronics and other belongings. Documents, photo albums, scrapbooks, journals and other irreplaceable items should go into waterproof safes or waterproof containers, he said.
He recommends duplicating important documents — financial records, titles, deeds, wills and medical records, among them — by scanning them and putting them on a flash drive or taking pictures of them with a phone.
Reducing water use
The Department of Natural Resources, noting the state gets approximately 95% of its water from the snowpack, is asking residents to help the state get through the dry years.
Extended drought has depleted reservoirs and it will take multiple years of above-average snowpack and precipitation to reverse those impacts, according to the department.
“This year’s record-setting snowpack is providing some much-needed relief for Utah’s water supply,” the department says on its website. “But since we don’t know when another wet year like this will come along, and most of the state remains in drought, we need to unite and focus on reducing water use so we have enough in the future. By continuing to conserve — and finding new ways to stretch the supply — we’ll become more drought resilient as a state.”
For conservation resources, visit https://water.utah.gov/snowpack/.
