It’s snowing again in Utah and December starts off dry

SALT LAKE CITY — Two storms heading toward Utah aren’t expected to cause too much trouble, but they are expected to give the Beehive State an unusually dry start to December.

A system off the California coast is forecast to produce more rain and snow in two waves on the Wasatch Front and northern Utah between Thursday night and Sunday morning. However, KSL meteorologist Matt Johnson says weather forecast models suggest both are likely to “lose momentum” as they move east, so the overall numbers may not be impressive.

The first wave is expected to arrive in Utah between late Thursday and early Friday, bringing snow showers to the Wasatch Front and northern Utah. A trace of about an inch of snow is expected to remain in the valleys and benches across the northern half of Utah. In the Wasatch backcountry it could be a few inches, while in mountainous areas it could be perhaps 2 to 6 inches.

A second wave is also expected to pass through this weekend, which will likely result in a mix of rain and snow between Saturday night and Sunday morning.

Higher accumulations are possible with the second wave, but National Weather Service snowfall forecast models updated Thursday morning project that most mountain areas may see less than a foot of snow by 5 a.m. Sunday.

“None of them look too strong,” Johnson said.

Complete seven-day forecasts for areas across Utah can be found online at the KSL Weather Center.

Break a trend

While both storms are likely small, they would still provide some initial moisture in Utah’s typically wetter months.

Salt Lake City has not officially received any moisture yet this month, although it typically receives about 1.4 inches of precipitation in December. The same is true for valley communities across the state, according to the National Weather Service.

A cold front system that broke through a long-standing inversion last weekend didn’t produce much moisture. Even in the mountain areas, winter starts slowly. One of the weather service’s Alta locations, which typically sees nearly 28 inches of snow in December, saw just 4 inches of snow fall a few days before the middle of the month.

This follows the meteorological fall being warmer and drier than what Utah normally receives, according to federal climate data released earlier this week.

The National Centers for Environmental Information reported that this year’s meteorological fall was the third warmest in Utah since at least 1895, with a statewide average temperature of 52.1 degrees. The final average was 1.1 degrees below the 1963 record and 0.1 degrees below another unseasonably warm temperature in the fall of 2001.

It was also the state’s 33rd driest fall in 130 years. In September, October and November, the state averaged just 2.4 inches of precipitation. However, major storms in the second half of the season proved beneficial, increasing November precipitation to 130% of normal at Natural Resources Conservation Service soil climate sites scattered across the state.

Statewide soil moisture levels were about 33% saturation at the end of the month but remained in the 30th percentile at the end of the season, Jordan Clayton, an agency hydrologist, wrote in a report last week. Soil moisture is considered a key factor in the drainage efficiency of each spring’s snowpack, which accounts for about 95% of the state’s water supply.

Utah’s snowpack – an accumulation of water in snow – ended the month slightly above the late November average, but by Thursday had fallen back to 81% at this point in the season.

“(It’s) really one of the slower starts we’ve seen in several years,” added Glen Merrill, a National Weather Service hydrologist, in an interview with KSL-TV this week.

What about the rest of the winter?

The current long-term outlook doesn’t look promising for Utahns dreaming of a white Christmas. The National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center released two-week forecasts through Dec. 25. It states that Utah is more likely to experience above-average temperatures and below-average precipitation leading up to the holiday.

Beyond that, it’s anyone’s guess. Johnson said ongoing trends closing out 2024 could easily continue into 2025, but Merrill said trends in the first half of the snow collection season don’t always carry over. For example, last winter’s snowpack reached 69% of average halfway through the season, but a surge of moisture in the second half led to further above-average snow accumulation.

“It can actually change in the blink of an eye,” he said. “Just because we’re starting slow doesn’t mean we’re going to stay slow the rest of the winter.”

Long-range, full-season forecasts don’t provide much indication as to whether Utah is in for a dry or wet winter.

The good news in both scenarios is that Utah’s reservoirs are in good shape for at least 2025. According to the Utah Division of Water Resources, the state’s reservoir system remains about 75% full, about the same as last year and 20 percentage points higher than the median average for December.

Contributor: Andrew Adams