A snowpack update

Good news - I found another 'guest blogger' to write a post for us enjoy!

Hello everyone, my name is Brian McInerney, and I’m the Senior Hydrologist for the National Weather Service located in Salt Lake City, Utah. As the Hydrologist, my job is to analyze snowpack in the mountain areas of Utah, and forecast the spring snowmelt runoff volume and timing.  I’ve been asked by Park City Mountain Resort to give a bit of an insight to the current snowpack conditions in the mountains where the Park City Mountain Resort resides.

Currently, we are experiencing a tremendous snowpack, averaging 143% of normal, with more storms on the horizon.  The season started out somewhat late, but right around the second week of December, the storms came with a vengeance.  During the winter season, Utah typically experiences one, maybe two storms per week.  During the time frame from mid-December to early February, we experienced three and sometimes four storms, for six weeks.  I personally almost used up all my vacation time taking days off to ski the killer powder.  I even gave reports on water supply and snowpack to the media while ducking into the trees on big powder days.  My hyper mind set on skiing great powder translated into the interviews and sounded somewhat giddy.  I sounded kind of odd I guess.

Well, as far as Utah’s snow goes, the skiing is killer all over the state, and with more storms forecasted on the way, we expect the snow to remain at much above normal levels for some time.  We can save up vacation days when summer gets here. 

Thanks for letting me contribute to this blog.  Let it snow!!

Thanks for the great post Brian!

Comments

[Luke Norris]

How long is it going to take for all this snow to melt? Where does the melted snow flow? Into the Great Salt Lake or the lake on the other side of the mountains?

Eric replies:
Luke, here's Brian's answers to your questions, "Northern Utah Mountain snowpacks generally begin melting at lower elevation in early April, with the last high elevation snowpack melting off sometime in mid to late June.
Essentially, the snow in the Wasatch Mountains flows into the Great Salt Lake. The Park City snowpack takes a more direct route to the lake by melting and flowing into the Weber River drainage through Morgan, Ogden, and then to the Great Salt Lake.
The backside of the Deer Valley Ski Resort and Sundance ski area snowpacks melt and take a more circuitous route by flowing into the Provo River to Deer Creek Reservoir, and then through the City of Provo to Utah Lake. The Jordan River finishes the journey to the Great Salt Lake from Utah Lake, where the flows terminate and one day evaporate.
The snow in the Western Uinta Mountains flows into the Bear and Weber and Provo River systems and then into the Great Salt Lake, with the Provo first going through Utah Lake. The Central and Eastern Uinta Mountains feeds snowmelt into the Green River system that joins the Colorado River to Lake Powell."
Thanks again Brian!

[Trevor Jackson]

Any chance with the super good snowpack this year that the resort will stay open later for us locals even if its just paday lift? I don't want to treck all the way to snowbird every weekend from mid april to june or whenver snowbird closes every weekend!

Eric replies:
Hi Trevor, our scheduled closing day is April 13 and although I'd love to be skiing through June with you, I know that our summer operations are scheduled to open on Memorial Day weekend and that directly impacts our ability to extend our winter operations.